Dear Dad,
On this, your thirty-ninth Father’s Day, I’ve been thinking about the ways you’ve been a father to me every day of my life. I love you, you love me: these are the plain facts that hold such more intricate truths and stories.
Some stories of our days together I only know because you’ve told me. Us watching Watergate together, the first summer of my life. You and me, hogging the baby pool in the back yard. Me, leaping into your arms for a dance whenever “Kodachrome” would play on your hi-fi. Other stories I remember myself. Waving good-bye to you from the kitchen window in my footie pajamas, as you zoomed off to work on your motorcycle with a beep. Telling me a wonderfully endless story about a girl trapped in a green world who discovers a red arrow and is forever changed. Taking me out for a hotdog and a cream soda (just you and me!), taking me to my first Mets game, my first concert, and to a pared-down overnight camping trip (everything had to fit on your motorcycle).
Remember what a moody, stubborn grudge-holder of a teenager I was? Well what I remember is how you’d face my scowl with jokes and laughter until I relented.
You’ve made me apologize when I treated others poorly, you have always been my greatest defender when others treated me poorly. You coached three sports and worked summers mowing lawns so that Mom could go back to school, and we could still take a summer vacation as a family. You welcomed my friends into our family, you hazed my boyfriends just enough (then you would help them too).
I admire you. You were a champion soccer player and baseball player in college; you have always been a natural leader. You served your country in the Army, you make friends everywhere you go, you master the hobbies you take up. You loved Mom since the first moment you met her, and you still flirt with her, more than five decades after you first clapped eyes on her. You speak with pride, love and delight about your son, and your grandchildren. The example of the way you love us is one of your greatest gifts to me.
Most recently, though, I think back to the night nearly two years ago when you picked me up at the train station and drove me to see a lawyer. You waited in the car as I learned the steps I’d have to take to rend my life apart, and what awaited me on my journey away from what I’d thought was my future as an until-death-do-us-part wife. Afterwards, you took me to a pizzeria for dinner, and kept up a congenial, gentle and one-sided stream of conversation about the Mets, your woodturning, the rest of the family. You handed me your handkerchief and didn’t fuss further about my ceaseless crying. When the waiter showed up and I was still crying, you acted as natural as could be. There was no pity, no drama. You just sat with me, steady in your belief that I would be fine, that I was fine. You even told me so. When I am counting my blessings, when I am cowed in gratitude for all that God has given me, this moment is one of the standouts.
When I was a little girl, you were my hero. You hugged away the mean words of the kids who teased me, you assured me I was smart and beautiful. Now, as a grown woman, you are still my hero. I have learned a little bit about what it takes to be a grown-up, and a person of integrity. I’ve seen how hard it is to give yourself over to love (and all the attendant worry). You are my hero because you have shared your humanity with me, and have shown me that being a hero sometimes means showing support when you can’t actually save the day. You’ve shown me the value of saying yes when people ask for help, and the rewards that come when we let our guard down and ask for help in return. Thank you.
I love you, Dad.
Always,
Your daughter
Pigtails Flying 