The Love Of My Father
Days like today are hard for those of us who have lost a parent. Three years ago my first love — my Daddy, died. I knew days before that he wasn’t going to be sticking around these parts much longer. It was the way he said, “Girls, I’m tired,” on that three-way call the last time my sister and I spoke to him. Those words haunt me today. They are all I seem to hear.
John Mayer wrote, “Fathers, be good to your daughters, daughters will love like you do.” Daddy showed us in a million different ways how he loved us. Most times, he was very fair and made no difference between the two of us. If my sister received $50, I also received $50. However, he loved us differently, too.
As kids, my sister was the master of delayed gratification and strategy. She’d hatch a plan for something she wanted months in advance to all but ensure the answer would be yes from our parents. If the answer didn’t go her way, she’d just countdown to the day she’d be off at college and could do whatever she wanted. I required more freedom, more logic, and at times, permission because I feared nothing more than disappointing my Dad and he knew this.
At 14, I was allowed to take the car and pick up my cousin (who was 16) and go out to the mall and to the movies. I’m sure he worried that I may get a ticket eventually, but he knew that I’d be home before curfew and I wouldn’t do anything he told me not to. Daddy always explained his no’s to me and that made me understand his decision making process and helped to formulate my own. And each time my mom gave me hell about choosing to move so far away whether for college or for work, Daddy would come behind her and remind me whose life it was and whose happiness was on the line. “Your mother and I live where we want. You go live where you want.”
There are so many gifts to thank my Dad for — my complexion, my smile, my sarcastic sense of humor, my logical and analytical nature, the love of family. I am most grateful for all the love and affection he poured on us; for all the hugs and the times he sat between my sister and me and held our hands with a big smile on his face, content to be with his girls and to tell and show us that we were loved.
