Pause

I'm a Daddy's Girl. At age 36 I have now spent as much time living out of his house as I spent living in it. I miss being his little kid. To this day the thing I love about my dad most is that he swam with me.

He would come home from work, change into his Larry Bird trunks and pile us kids in the VW Rabbit. We swam at Stephen's Lake and sometimes he even bought us 35-cent ice cream drumsticks if we promised to eat all of our dinner. He would let us stand up through the sunroof once we turned on Portland Avenue and would steer funny so we would wiggle and scream. I'm sure my mother enjoyed the few hours of rare quiet by blissfully passing out on the sofa the entire time we were at the lake. Of everything my dad did for me growing up- the endless hours of providing via dentistry, his church responsibilities, driving the van across the country for summer vacations, mowing, grilling, making lemon bars, sewing our stockings, vacuuming on Saturdays- what I remember is the swimming. When I told him this he said, "Gosh, if I had known that's all you'd remember I would have done so much less."

Parenting is a thankless job. I am discovering this myself with a variably disgruntled tween. That said, parenting is also rewarding at odd and unexpected hours. Thinking about my dad this past week I found a forgotten memory from high school. It was my senior year, which stunk socially but rocked academically. For whatever reason I was having a terrible day. After dinner my dad came down to my basement bedroom and asked if I wanted to go to a movie. On a school night? His reply: WHY NOT? 

We drove to Biscayne Mall and saw the Kiefer Sutherland version of The Three Musketeers. When we exited the sparsely-attended movie it had snowed and his new black Lexus was white and so was the freshly covered parking lot. I held his hand as we made crunchy tracks to the car. I always held my dad's hand. He spun around the empty lot a few times and we went home. It was so late, and I still had seminary early the next morning, but I didn't care. My dad had taken me to a movie on a school night and simply loved me. He could have preached ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT or demanded to know what my problem was. He could have had a rotten day at work or been stressed about his own bag of worries, but I never sensed any of that. I just knew he made time for me on a school night...and that fixed everything.

I've thought a lot about that night, as well as the swimming, in reference to my own kid. What will RE remember about me? How clean my house is or my great cooking? No, she has nothing to compare it to. (This is the kid that proclaims, "I'm tired of this meat!" when I cook filet mignon. Once she eats a rubber steak at Sizzler she won't be tired of it...) She won't be thankful for her current security until she has to create it for her own children someday. My hope is she'll remember that I was there every day of her life to pick her up from school, but most likely she'll recall that I was a late riser and a grumpy morning person with insane bed head that wore her robe too much. In my heart of hearts I believe that she'll remember I always got in the pool with her and slid down the waterslides, too. I did that because of my own dad.

In the spirit of WHY NOT? I took RE for a couple's massage with me last week on a school night. She loved it. The whole time I was thinking, "Please remember this, kid. I feel like doing so much less right now, but I'm giving you my all. I'm giving it to you because you matter to me."

*Photo of a greeting card published by Rhapsodie. I go ape for things like this. Clever paper cutting = better than Kiefer Sutherland's acting in 1993.