I found real solace as a kid saying the Our Father. It wasn’t the same as saying “my dad,” but the universal compensated for the lack of the intimate. Fatherless, I still got to have a Father. … None of us are children of God in any legitimate sense; we are made legitimate by adoption. What’s more, we’re grafted onto a family centered on a man who was born to a not-yet-wed mother and didn’t get to spend too much of his time on earth with his (real) Father. We may get disinherited in this life, but we’re adopted by the Father no matter what our status.

I knew that even if he couldn’t play catch with me, he would stick around.