My Father’s Gift
“A daughter needs a dad to be the standard against which she will judge all men.” — Unknown
In January I celebrated my 44th birthday, which was significant only because I had the good fortune of celebrating one more than my mother did. And yet it was my father, not her, who stood center stage in my mind that day. He had sent me a birthday message the day before “in case he forgot to do it” on my birthday.
My dad has a dual gift of practicality and practical jokes. This was his practical side speaking: he knew he might forget my birthday. The joke came later when he said he would wish me happy birthday for 2020 “while he was at it” so that next year would be covered too.
Years ago I might have been hurt. How could he forget? If my mother had been here, she would’ve…
But that’s in the past.
What do parents owe their adult children after all? If a parent has given everything to rear that child and love her along the way, what can he give her as an adult? And if the parent hasn’t given those things, what can he ever give that would be enough?
My father owes me nothing. Aside from playing catch, taking us to church, and hunting Christmas trees in the woods, my dad worked; he worked a lot. Hard, hot labor under an Alabama sky. Arriving home in the evenings, he would pet the dog on his way up the driveway and quick kisses would follow before he collapsed into his rocker-recliner for the night.
We ate dinner in front of the evening news, followed by the Cosby Show and Family Ties or whatever shows our cable-free TV caught from the antenna perched atop our roof. But in spite of his shortage of time, my dad gave me the greatest gift he could give this little girl: he loved my mother.
He didn’t only love her, he adored her. And it was felt throughout our tiny house, scratched into the paneling as clearly as Jackie+Becky would have been. When he popped her on the butt and she scolded him saying, “Not in front of the kids!” we giggled.
When he declared something was “the God’s honest truth” and she responded that it was “a lie from the pit of Hell,” we laughed. He preferred her company to anyone else’s, and I knew even then I wanted to marry a man who would love me that way.
My first marriage was a miss; it was far from what I was looking for. But, I tried again because my dad was proof that there were good men in the world. I had hard evidence there were men who respected their wives, who weren’t afraid to show affection.
So when my 44th birthday came, I didn’t wonder if he would call, if he would remember. I wasn’t empty-handed because I had received his gift many years before. Today I have the marriage I wanted as a little girl because, thanks to him, I knew exactly what I was looking for.
Another daughter would have a different story to tell, but when I speak of my father, I must tell of my mother. And my father’s love.
