Joy Overcomes Pain When Son, 19, Finds Father

Father’s Day took on a new meaning for Doug Vulich this year. It was the day he found his father.

Doug’s father had disappeared 17 years ago after he divorced Doug’s mother when the boy was just 2. Vulich’s mother, Lana Daniels, had told her son for years that Steve Vulich dropped from sight because she had planned to remarry and have her new husband adopt her son.

“He bowed out of the picture for his son’s sake,” said Daniels, a Simi Valley resident. “I didn’t know if he was dead or alive or what had happened to him.”

But on June 16, Daniels spotted feature photographs in The Times Valley Edition of Steve Vulich painting a giant water tower in Castaic. “I almost fell off the couch when I saw those pictures,” she said. Two days later, on Father’s Day, she showed the newspaper photos to Doug.

“I was overjoyed,” Doug said. He had longed to see his dad for years. “I told myself I would find him.”

Steve Vulich, meanwhile, had given up hope of ever seeing his son. He had remarried, moved out of the Los Angeles area and for 10 years skippered sail charters along the East Coast, Florida and the Caribbean. He returned to California a year ago to work for his father’s painting business in Burbank and now lives in Whittier.

“I didn’t think I would ever see him,” Steve said. Doug is his only child. He had never received a Father’s Day card.

When Doug worked up his courage and called his father, he didn’t know what to say. He finally blurted out: “Hey, Dad, how are you doing?” Both father and son said they could not hold back their tears during the ensuing conversation. The next day, they met at the home Doug and his mother share in Simi Valley.

Since then, Doug has been introduced to uncles and grandparents he never knew. The whole family gathered over the weekend to celebrate Steve’s 41st birthday, and father and son have discovered they are both avid cyclists.

Doug also learned that his father is a daredevil who enjoys sky-diving. “I told him he was crazy.” Doug had never considered jumping himself, but that was before he watched videotapes of his dad sailing gently to earth. “He does it,” Doug said. “I want to do it.”

Steve is attending a sky-diving competition in Oklahoma through mid-July. But before he left, he experienced for the first time a basic rite in American fatherhood: He lent his son the keys to his car.

Along with the joy of reunion, there is soul-searching and guilt for father, son and mother. “There’s a lot of pain for Doug,” Daniels said.

“I think about why he couldn’t keep in touch,” Doug said. “I feel he should have kept in touch.”

Daniels said she and Steve had agreed that it was best to let her second husband adopt their son. Neither guessed her second marriage would fall apart as well. The adoption never became final.

“There’s going to be things they have to work out--and questions to be answered,” Daniels said. “But that will come in time.”

For now, father and son have agreed to focus on the future. As Daniels recreated a recent conversation, the two decided that they could enjoy the events and holidays celebrated by families everywhere. “We have birthdays and holidays,” Steve said.

“And we have Father’s Day,” Doug added.

“Yes,” his father said, “I guess we do.”