Take the Stairs by Rory Vaden

Author:Rory Vaden [Vaden, Rory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101575413
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2012-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

“Do I Have a Dad?”

When I was seven years old, I was driving with my mom on South Boulder Road heading into Boulder, Colorado. It’s one of the most amazing scenes on the planet because, when you drive from Louisville into Boulder, there is this point where you come over a hill and the entire Rocky Mountains open up to you.

Across this beautiful landscape you can see the snowcapped mountains and let crisp mountain air rejuvenate your lungs as you rush down this enormous hill. I very specifically remember this time in my life not because of the scenery but because I remember turning to my mom and asking her these questions.

“Mom, do I have a dad? Where is my dad? Other kids at school all have a dad. Where is my dad?”

My mom answered, “I’ve not had much luck with men, honey. I’ve tried a couple times and it never seems to work out well for us.”

To which I responded, “Yeah, but I want a dad.”

She replied, “Well then, honey, if you want a dad, then you’re going to have to go find your own dad. Go find us a good one.”

I remember thinking…“What kind of crap is that?! Find my own dad?” But I also remember taking it on as a personal challenge and declaring, “Okay, deal. I will find a dad for us.”

On that drive we were heading to my very first day at a new Shaolin Kung Fu center. I had been doing Tae Kwon Do before that but was looking for a new challenge. What was unique about this Kung Fu center was that it was all adults. The youngest person there next to me was twenty-eight years old.

On my very first day, I got paired up with a man named Kevin who had also just joined the school. He had long hair and these big tattoos on his arms, and he wore this tattered leather jacket and drove a motorcycle. Let me just say that, to a seven-year-old, he was about the scariest person I had ever met!

Because we were both new to the class, we became sparring partners. As time went by, we started advancing through the belt levels together and became quite good friends. The higher the levels we reached, the later the classes were at night, and eventually he started bringing me home after class since Mom had to get up early to go to work.

Kevin started bringing me home at night and then he started hanging out with me on the weekends. Before I knew it, he and my mom and I were all hanging out together. And I’ll never forget the first time they went to a movie—without me. I was pretty mad!

Eventually, I realized what was happening. When I was ten, Kevin and I tested for our black belts together; he and my mom got married shortly after. He adopted me, I changed my last name to his, and I have called him Dad ever since.

Had my mom

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