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Kate Simonson wasn't so fond of Mike Fieseler when he was dating her mother

After her mom died, Mike came for the funeral and helped Kate and her brother

He eventually adopted the kids, helped Kate get through college

Kate considers Mike her father and he walked her down the aisle at her wedding

-- The summers of my youth were filled with the kinds of activities that were common to every kid in the 80s but are considered almost death-defying these days: tree climbing, bike riding without a helmet, and daylong road trips spent in the backseat of the family car, where we bounced around like Super Balls, nary a seat belt in sight.

Still, my mother was safety-obsessed about some things, like swimming lessons. Year after year, she forced me to take them at our local pool in Iowa City. Having to go against my will seemed all the more unfair to me, since my mother could not swim and was actually afraid of the water.

But my mother reasoned that if water came between her children and their safety, she would be helpless.

"I can't save you," she would calmly state in answer to my pleas to bow out of the lessons. "So I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you can save yourself." It's no wonder she embraced this philosophy of self-reliance. She knew how unexpectedly life can rob you of someone you care about. My parents adopted me as an infant and went on to have a biological child -- my brother, Jason -- a couple of years later.

My dad was an electrician, and he died in an accident on the job when I was three. After his death, my mother had to raise us alone, and she was acutely aware that she was truly on her own, with no backup plan. She was fiercely strong and yet constantly fearful.

I have almost no memories of my father. Instead I remember Mike Fieseler. He was a former industrial-arts teacher whom my mother dated off and on for much of my childhood. Jason and I weren't his biggest fans. He was a man of strict rules, while my mom's approach could be more properly deemed overindulgent leniency.

We resented having to share the spotlight with him -- a sentiment that was particularly strong every Christmas morning, when we had to wait for him to arrive before we could open gifts. (There is little a man can do to endear himself to children less than delaying Christmas-morning gratification.) And when they stopped dating, when I was 15, I wasn't unhappy to see him go. Then, on February 18, 1991, when I was 17, my mother suddenly died of a brain aneurysm. One minute she was laughing with friends, enjoying an evening out; the next, she was unconscious on the floor. She never woke up. Just 19 hours later, she was dead, leaving my 15-year-old brother and me orphans.

In the moments of shock and horror that followed, my relatives all gathered in the hospital, and I went home with only a close friend for company (Jason followed a while later). We spent that night on our own. I was numb; it had all happened so fast. I could barely think beyond the immediate moment.

The next morning, my grandfather, aunts, and uncles were still immersed in their own mourning. Shell-shocked as I was, I knew I had to let people know what had happened. I saw my mother's address book lying where she had set it only days before and started dialing. One of the phone numbers I found was Mike's.

Even though he lived about an hour away, it felt like he was there in an instant. As soon as he walked in, he took charge -- and took care of Jason and me. Among other small kindnesses, he gave me a credit card and said, "Why don't you buy something to wear to the funeral?" He gave me permission to be a 17-year-old -- to focus on the more mundane issue of what I was going to wear instead of weighty adult concerns.

Generally, when children are orphaned, a family member comes forward to take them in. This didn't happen in our case. Everyone had a good reason, I suppose. My mom's father was too old to assume responsibility for us; my mother's sister and her husband had three kids of their own and weren't able to take in any others; her other two siblings were both single and worked long hours. The guardian named in my mother's will was a babysitter that none of us had seen in 15 years.

But I can tell you this: Abandonment, even for very good reasons, feels awful. It was heartbreaking and terrifying to have lost the person we loved most and then to be set adrift.

Months passed and it felt like our relatives could offer no reassurances. The only news we got was that if Jason and I remained without a guardian, we would have to enter foster care. Our mother was gone, and there was nothing we could do to save ourselves.

And, once again, there was Mike. After the funeral, he was a constant presence. He made sure that food filled the cupboards, the bills were paid, and the lawn was mowed. (Mike's adult daughter, Linda, pitched in and took care of his house.) He made sure I went back to school even when it was the last thing I wanted to do. His overbearing personality -- the trait I had hated the most -- is what comforted me the most and got me through those difficult days.

Mike says that Linda came up with the idea to make his role with Jason and me official -- he could become our guardian. He was on board right away. Mike still says he never considered not doing it; caring for us was simply the right thing to do. One day he made us his offer. In a moment where the grief of loss and the pain of being unwanted threatened to capture my very breath, this man, whose only tie to us was having dated my mother, said he would be honored to take us in.

From that moment on, everything was different. His girlfriend, Patty, threw us a "guardian party" when the paperwork became official. It was just a small gathering, but it made us feel special. I received a key chain with my initials, and I remember thinking that the idea behind it was so lovely.

Over the years, Mike has become not merely a legal guardian but a real father to me. When I fell into depression in college, unable to get past thoughts of my mother and all I had lost, he was there to listen.

When my husband, Eric, and I bought our first house, Mike spent weekends installing insulation and repairing our gutters. He never wrote me off as a good, mature kid who could handle everything herself. He walked the line between trusting me and recognizing when I might need help. And what more could you want from a father than that?

His was an unconventional path to parenthood, to say the least. It is not by birth or adoption that I consider this man to be my father; it isn't even through his presence in my childhood. It is rather by sheer good luck on my part.

Before he made that generous offer, I felt as though I had lost my mooring and the waters were flooding in; afterward, I simply felt rescued. If my mother had taught me to be strong and depend on myself, Mike imparted his own lesson -- that the world will provide for you, even when you least expect it.

Eight years after Mike stepped forward, he walked me down the aisle. Four years after that, I gave birth to his first granddaughter, Emily Michl Simonson. (Mike's legal name is Michl.) The name is a reminder of my saved past and a promise for the future, and I hope one day Emily will see that as well. Because as much as I plan to teach her to swim (indeed, she's now six and enrolled in lessons), I also want her to know this: No matter how fast the waters rise, no matter how hard it may be to keep her head above the waves, someone will throw her a line.

当迈克·菲瑟勒与妈妈约会时，凯特·西蒙斯并不是那么喜欢他

凯特的妈妈去世之后，迈克来参加葬礼并照顾凯特和弟弟

后来，迈克收养了他们，帮助凯特完成了大学学业

凯特把迈克看做是她的父亲，在婚礼上，他牵着凯特的手交给新郎

我少年时代的夏天充满了各种各样的活动，这些对80年代的小孩来说都很常见，但现在都被看作是危险活动：爬树、不带头盔骑单车，在汽车后座上度过一天的旅行，因为不系安全带，我们像弹球一样被弹起来。

然而，我妈妈对某些事情的安全很在意，比如游泳课。年复一年，她总会要求我在衣阿华城当地的公共游泳池上课。因为我妈妈不会游泳而且实际上很怕水，所以对不愿意上游泳课的我来说，更加的不公平。

妈妈认为如果万一河水威胁到孩子们的安全，她束手无策。

“我救不了你，”她总会用平静的语调加以说明，以此来应对我退出游泳课的恳求。“所以我要尽我的能力来保证你可以救得了自己。”毫无疑问，她接受这套自力更生的哲学。她知道生活会如何毫无征兆地夺走你在乎的亲人。在我很小的时候，我父母收养了我，几年以后，他们有了自己的孩子—我的弟弟杰森。

我父亲是一名电工，我三岁的时候，他在一次事故中殉职。父亲去世以后，妈妈不得不独自抚养我们。她深切地意识到她得真正地靠自己，没有别的办法。虽然她极度坚强却时常感到不安。

我对父亲没有什么印象，但是我记得迈克·菲瑟勒。他以前是教工业艺术的老师，在我童年的记忆中，他和我妈妈总是分分和和。我和杰森都不是很喜欢他，他是一个很有原则的人，而严格地说，我妈妈对人对事则太过宽容。

我们很不喜欢和迈克一起分享妈妈的关注—在圣诞节早上我们不得不等他一起拆礼物的时候，这种感觉变得很强。（没有什么比圣诞节早晨不迟到更能让孩子喜欢的了）我15岁的时候，他们停止交往，看见他离开我并没有不开心。1991年2月18日，我十七岁，妈妈患脑动脉瘤突然去世。前一分钟，她还高兴地在聚会上和朋友说笑，下一分钟，她已经躺在地板上，失去知觉，再也没有醒过来。十九个小时以后，她离开了我们。我和十五岁的弟弟成了孤儿。

在那一刻，震惊和恐惧接踵而来。亲戚们都在医院，一个好朋友陪我回了家，（杰森随后也回来了）。我们自己度过了一晚上。当时我很迟钝，因为一切发生得太快了。我几乎不能思考当时以外的事情。

第二天早上，祖父和舅舅、阿姨们还沉浸在各自的悲痛之中。感觉到悲痛的我认为必须让大家知道发生了什么事情。我看到妈妈前两天才用的通讯录还在那，其中就有迈克的名字。

虽然迈克离这有一小时的路程，但给我感觉他马上就赶到了。一走进来，他就开始照料一切，包括我和杰森。他给我一张信用卡，说：“你为什么不去买件葬礼上穿的衣服呢”，他让我关注17岁孩子该关心的我应该穿什么的实际问题，而不是那些大人们考虑的事情。

一般情况下，孩子们成为孤儿后，家里的某个亲戚会承担起抚养责任。但是我的亲戚们没有，我猜想每个人都有充分的理由。我妈妈的父亲年纪太大，不能担负照顾我们的责任；妈妈的姐姐和她的丈夫有三个孩子，不能再照顾其他的孩子了；另外两个兄弟，都是单身而且工作很繁忙。妈妈的遗嘱里指定的监护人是个已经有15年没联系的保姆。

但是，我可以说，遗弃，即便是有充分的理由，也会让人感觉不舒服。失去你最爱的人后漂泊无依让人觉得难受和可怕。

几个月过去了，亲戚们也没什么安慰的话了。我得到的唯一的消息就是如果我和杰森还没有监护人的话，我们就不得不到孤儿院去了。我们的妈妈不在了，我们也救不了自己。

迈克又一次地来到了我们身边。葬礼后，他就经常出现：确保厨子里有食物、账单付清、草坪清理好。（迈克的大女儿琳达来帮忙照管他家）迈克让我回到学校，虽然这是我最不愿意做的事情。我以前很讨厌他那专横的性格，但现在却给与我最多安慰，帮助我度过了那段艰难的日子。

麦克说琳达建议让他正式收养我们—成为我们的监护人。他马上就要离开了，他还说他从来没有考虑不这样做；照顾我们是应该的。一天，他正式向我们提出了建议。在失落的悲伤和被遗弃的痛苦几乎扼住我呼吸的时刻，这个男人说他很荣幸能够和我们成为一家人，而他和我们的唯一的联系就是他曾经和我的妈妈交往过。

从那一刻起，所有的一切都发生了变化。当文件签署后，她的女朋友帕蒂为我们举办了一个“监护人”聚会。虽然只是小型的聚会，但是对我们来说意义很特殊。我得到了一个写有我名字缩写的钥匙链，我记得当时觉得这背后的想法是多么地感人。

这么多年过去了，对我来说迈克已经不仅仅是法定的监护人，而是一个真正的父亲。当我在学校里情绪低落，不能摆脱对妈妈的思念，对逝去的缅怀时，他总是会在那聆听。

当我和丈夫埃里克买下第一座房子后，迈克花费好几个周末帮我们安装绝缘、修理水槽。他从没把我当成一个可以应付所有事情的成熟的小孩。他总是在信任我的同时意识到我可能会需要帮助。那些做父亲的不也是这样想的吗?

至少可以这样说，他不是传统意义上的父亲。并不是因为血缘或者收养，我才把他看作父亲，甚至不是因为他在我童年出现过。在我看来，纯粹是因为好的运气。

在他慷慨的举动之前，我感觉自己像无处停泊的小船，差点被海水淹没，后来，我感觉被救了。如果说妈妈是要我依靠自己变得强壮，迈克则是用自己的行动告诉我—世界总还会眷顾你，哪怕你期望值很低。

在他收养我们八年后，他陪伴我走进了教堂。又过了四年，我生下了他的第一个孙女，艾米丽·米歇尔·西蒙斯（迈克的本名叫米歇尔）。这个名字能够让我回想起过去，让我对未来充满希望，我希望有一天艾米丽也会感受到。就像我要让她学习游泳一样（事实上，她6岁了，已经开始上游泳课了），我想让她明白：不管浪多高，水多急，不管把头伸出水面有多么困难，总会有人抛给你救生圈。

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