Today is my dad’s birthday.

There’s my dad and me—well, they say that’s me, but I don’t recognise me.  It could be my sister.  Sweet shoes, though, Dad.  I wish you still had those so I could swipe them.

I have 2/3 of his gift purchased, 1/3 ready to purchase, and 0/3 sent in the mail to him.  It’s gonna be a little late.  Sorry, Dad!  So for now, I’ll write him this post, since e-gifts are instantaneous…

I would be lying if I said my dad and I have always had a close relationship.  I’d be lying if I said I was an ideal daughter growing up.  I’d be telling a 100% complete falsehood if I said I was an easy person to raise.

In short, I gave him hell.  (And my mom, too—but it’s not her birthday.)

From my teenage self’s perspective, I was a whole heck of a lot better-behaved than most teenagers.  I never drank.  Never smoked.  Wouldn’t have known how to get drugs even if I wanted to try them, which I didn’t.  I didn’t sneak out—not once.  (We had a dog.  {Plus, it never occurred to any of my friends that we should sneak out, so if I’d gone, I’d have been all alone, and that’s kind of lame for sneaking out purposes.})  I got good grades—even had a full-ride scholarship once upon a time.

…

…

…Actually, come to think of it, I was a pretty dang good kid, after all!  Never mind.

Okay, I’m kidding.  I wasn’t perfect—I was dramatic, moody, possibly a bit too spoiled for my own good, you know the type: friendly and outgoing at school and among friends, but couldn’t seem to muster up a kind word for my own family.

I cringe to think of how I was then.

My only solace is that the Good Lord has seen fit to bless me with time to make up for my life from the ages of 14-19.

When I got married and moved to Canada right around my dad’s birthday two years ago, I gave him a gift of blank notecards for him to fill up with his thoughts, reports, whatever, and send to me.  In return, I wrote him back.  I can honestly say this gift has brought us closer emotionally than we’ve been since I turned twelve.  Every time I receive one of his cards in the mail, I tear it open excitedly to see what he has written.

Sometimes his words make me laugh—he has an amazingly goofy sense of humour that I never really knew existed, or else I used to know but forgot.

In this particular card, he writes, “I haven’t done so well writing you every month but I’m writing you this month!  I’m going to repent!”  See what I mean?  Funny.

Other times I close the cards with tears streaming down my face; not that he writes terribly sappy sentiments, but they just mean so much to me, and I’m so grateful to have them, that I can’t really keep from crying.

The relationship we share has not always been stable, but the good thing about a rocky history is that it is at least built on rocks.  And it’s true—my dad has always been there.  Here.  And maybe even when I didn’t believe he (or anyone, for that matter, because like I said: DRAMA!) was there for me, I know now that he was.  He is.  He always has been.

One of my dearest memories I have of my dad is this:

I was 20.  I had gotten engaged in September and by January had decided that before I got married, I needed an awesome “on my own” experience.  So I packed my bags and moved to Belgium to be a nanny.  The day I was scheduled to leave, I was a nervous wreck—I had never met the people, I had no idea if they were even REAL, and if they were real, I was certain they would rape me in my sleep at night.  My dad offered to drive me to the airport, and when we got there, he parked (which is unheard of in our family—we’re a drop-at-the-curb bunch if ever there was one), carried my heaviest bags, stayed with me through check-in, security, and all the way to the gate, where he waited with me until it was time to board (he works for an airline, so his badge allowed him to do that).

Up until the gate, I had kept my composure pretty well, but once I had time to actually sit and THINK about what I was doing, I had a complete meltdown.  Tears started streaming down my face—I rarely cry in front of people, least of all (at that time in my life) my parents—and I just sat there, miserably.  I wanted to just leave.  Run away.  Forget any of it had ever happened.

But you know what my dad did?  He put his arm around my shoulder—again, unusual for us, because we aren’t really the most touchy-feely of families—and just patted it until I calmed down a bit.  He said, “I know it’s scary, what you’re doing.  I’m even scared for you.  But you know?  I am SO PROUD of you.  I respect that you’re doing it.  It’s very brave.  It’s much braver than I was at your age.”

Of course when he said that, I cried even harder because it was without doubt the sweetest moment I’d ever shared with my father, but he just reached into his back pocket and handed me his crisp white handkerchief, which I promptly soiled.

Yes, my dad carries handkerchiefs on a regular basis.  He’s awesome like that.

When it was finally time to board the plane, he told me to keep the hankie, which was particularly generous, since I proceeded to weep halfway to Philadelphia.  For the next five months I used that handkerchief to wrap up the camera Poor Kyle had loaned me, to keep the crumbs off of it in my purse.  The handkerchief and the camera accompanied me everywhere I went.  I still have them, both.

And I went on to enjoy one of the most life-altering, self-actualising, personally liberating experiences of my life.  I will always have that.  That, and the hankie.

I love my dad.

I may have stopped calling him “Daddy” when I was six or seven, maybe eight, but I never went so far as to call him “Eric.”  He’s “Dad,” and he always will be.

I’d bake him a cake, but…

…well…

…

…

…

…I somehow get the feeling that wouldn’t exactly be a nice gift, given my history with birthday cakes.

I love you, Dad!  Happy Birthday!

Share this post: on Twitter on Facebook on Google+