Here we go, Steelers!
“Love never stands still, nor does its object. It is the revolving sun and the swelling bud. If I know what I love, it is because I remember it.”
“How’d you come to be a Steelers fan?,” my brother often gets asked.
His reply is some form of, “My stepdad growing up was from Pittsburgh.”
Throughout my life, my brother was always the biggest Steelers fan, which was somewhat unusual given we were from and lived in the Sacramento area. My mom’s side of the family were all San Francisco 49ers fans, naturally. I never really questioned my brother’s team of choice. It was just how things were, and I did what most little kids do - accept the facts with no need to question.
Another fact I never questioned was that my brother and sister adored their stepdad, Bobby. Our mom married him in 1981, when my sister Leslie was three, and my brother Dwaine was twelve. When my mom found out she was pregnant (with me) in early 1985, it was assumed my father was Steve, the man with whom she’d had an affair. My mom and Bobby divorced, and she did what she thought was the right thing to do: marry Steve.
Not long after I was born, my brother and sister went to live with their respective fathers and I had essentially grown up as an only child. When I got older and figured out that they had previously lived with our mom and her ex-husband, it wasn’t hard to figure out why they weren’t living with us. Steve was not a good father, nor was he a good husband to my mom. And although I knew it was not my fault that I had been born into this world, it was hard not to partially blame my existence on breaking up their family. My kid-brain logic was that had I not been born, my mom, brother and sister would still be with Bobby.
When the bombshell news dropped in 2020 that my biological father was Bobby, and not Steve, I knew immediately that it wouldn’t only be me who would grieve “what could have been.” After the truth surfaced, and prior to my meeting him in person, my mom gave me a stack of photos from those years they were together. The pictures presented a wholesome, loving family. It was magical to see my siblings in front of a Christmas tree next to my brand-new dad. Yet, as brand-new as he was, in any tangible sense, there he was in these photographs. That’s my dad, with the face that is simultaneously unfamiliar and that which explains the looks of mine, alongside the very familiar faces of my big brother and sister.
Christmas 1984. My brother, Dwaine; my sister, Leslie; and their stepdad Bobby, AKA, my birth father.
From left to right: my brother, Dwaine; my mom, Denise; my dad/their stepdad, Bobby; my sister, Leslie. Circa 1983.
Between the photographs and stories, I managed to get a decent sense of who this man was. Adding a deeper insight, my brother had spent his formative, coming-of-age years living with and was heavily influenced by his cool, Steelers-loving stepdad. My brother had unknowingly acquainted me with my father over the years, not just with his shared passion for the Steelers, but by a general way of being: be proud of your belongings, surround yourself with sentimental artifacts and mementos, wear your team’s jerseys and hang up their posters. Let everyone know who and what you love.
When I met my dad and saw his house for the first time, it felt familiar, thanks in part to the obvious influence he had on my brother. I immediately realized that my brother’s love of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe had also come from my father, seeing framed pictures of both celebrities hanging in my dad’s garage. And, although it was likely to happen quickly regardless, I felt safe with my dad immediately, thanks to how my sister had always lovingly described him. I didn’t have to gauge for myself that he was a kind, gentle soul. She called him “Daddy Bobby” as a little girl, and once told her father how lucky she was to have “two daddies.”
Although my heart breaks for the younger me who didn’t get to experience a kind, gentle father growing up, I’m also incredibly grateful that my brother and sister did - both in their stepdad Bobby, as well as their fathers. It heals me and always will to have this connection with my siblings over this man they’ve loved since they were kids. Even though we were never actually in the same room with him at the same time, we still all came to love, feel safe with, and look up to him.
And now, when I’m asked how I came to be a Steelers fan, I respond with, “my dad was from Pittsburgh.”
Until next Sunday,
Stephanie
P.S. evidential photos below of my dad’s strong Steelers influence on my brother.
Nov 1, 2020, four days after my dad passed. I spent the morning crying and watching the Steelers win with my brother. The shirt I’m wearing belonged to my dad, and I’m wearing his gold chain.
Dwaine with our niece Ellie, our sister Leslie and her husband Randal’s daughter, waving that Terrible Towel. Circa 2017.
Christmas 2022. My nephews Joseph and Daniel, Dwaine and his wife Lisa’s sons.
