Being a Dad — a good Dad — is hard, especially when you’ve lost your own. It has been well over a decade since my Dad died. Long enough that some days I find myself straining to remember the exact cadence of his voice. I was in my early 20’s and it hadn’t yet occurred to me in his last years to ask him for wisdom on being a Dad. I have some memories that offer hints: the day I called to tell him I got a scholarship to high school and he roamed the halls of his office building telling total strangers because he was bursting with pride; the night I ran away from home and he found me and for the only time I can remember sobbed as he held me, overcome with relief that I wasn’t gone for good.

He was a great Dad, but I never got around to asking him how he did it.

I lucked into a second chance by marriage. My father in law was a magnificent man — accomplished and smart and funny, but also from a mid-Atlantic working class Italian American background that reminded me of my Dad. It is impossible to think of him now without thinking of the Vineyard — it was the first place I met him on a frigid New Year’s Eve, fresh off an eight-hour drive and my first ferry ride and thrown right into making risotto with scallops fresh from Menemsha, the best I’d ever had.

I got my first lesson in fly rod casting in the yard — his reaction to my request for his blessing to marry his daughter. We were married here, it was our first home as a couple, and where we started down the path to parenthood. Our son celebrated his first Christmas in the bright, bitter cold of Chilmark, and we came back not much longer after to say goodbye to the man he called “Pop”.

He was gone. Once again the list of parenting questions with no easy answers grew.

I was thinking about this the other night as I walked out of The Galley, my son tucked under my arm screaming hysterically about his need for an ice cream cone that his behavior certainly didn’t warrant. He’d fully melted down over something so small I can’t even recall it now. There were kicks and screams and tiny rage-filled fists. On our walk of shame, I half expected to get a knowing nod from a Menemsha fisherman, seeing my struggle to reel in a catch bigger than I’d bargained for. We certainly ruined the oysters for someone at the Homeport. Whatever being a good Dad was, surely it couldn’t be this.

But maybe it is.

A recent morning felt like it was on track to similarly go off the rails. The pounding rain cut off my usual outdoor pathways to channel toddler energy, but also cultivated a staunch refusal to take off pajamas even if leaving the house. We were headed for a meltdown. So I embraced it. You want to wear pajamas to eat ice cream on the porch at Alley’s at 11:30 am? Great. It’s a Special Daddy Adventure.

Halfway through his Strawberry Shortcake bar, he slid over to lean into me and told me that he loved me. Even when he was done, he asked if we could sit there five minutes longer. Five minutes is a length of time for him that might as well be measured in hours or days. He told me that he had an idea: he wanted to go to the library and look at books. He said he didn’t want his Daddy adventure to end.

Caving to the demands of a three-year-old tyrant doesn’t make you a good Dad. But constantly trying — trying to learn, trying to adapt, trying every day to be better — maybe that does.

That is why I have taken up writing again. If someday I am gone and my own children find themselves in my shoes, searching for a voice they can’t quite hear for an answer they can’t quite grasp, I have some peace of mind, knowing at least a little bit of me lives on in this page, urging them to keep trying.

Bill Russo lives in Chilmark and Washington DC.