I spent years avoiding fatherhood. Then my brother died when his sons were 6 and 2.

The author (center) became a father figure to his nephews when his brother died.

Courtesy of Emillio Mesa.

I never wanted to be a father. Not because of things like diapers, money, or freedom. The feeling I had was older than that, more like a scar than a decision.My own father has been a stranger my whole life, a man I share a last name with and nothing else. And while he stayed gone, my mother kept trying to fill the hole he left: four marriages, men who walked through our lives and right back out. By the time I was 16, "father" was just a word that I equated with slammed doors. So, I made myself a promise, I wouldn't become one more man who left. The easiest way to keep that promise was never to have a kid to leave in the first place.Then life threw my family some unexpected curveballs.My nephews lost a lotAlmost twelve years ago, my brother died. He left two boys behind; they were just 6 and 2 at the time.They were too little to really remember him, big enough to feel the shape of what was missing. I noticed it at the funeral, then at every gathering after, the way their eyes moved around the rooms, looking. They seemed to be searching for their dad in other men's faces, without even knowing it. But I knew. And something in me, I'd spent my whole life trying to cut out, just stepped forward.