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.