They say that girls want to date men that are like their fathers. I don't know how true the general statement is as a whole but for me, I couldn't agree more. Growing up my father was my best friend. He made mistakes along the way in his marriage to my mom but when it came to me, I thought he was a god.
Dad raised me with a sense of right and wrong that I believed in. I didn't just follow the rules because he said so. I understood them and their purpose. He cared about my understanding of why things were the way things were supposed to be.
He always had time to listen to my stories or look at what I had done at school that day. It was harder to show him things when he was on the road but he still had time to listen on the phone. It wasn't so that he could be proud of me either. It was because he knew how much it meant to be to have him pay attention to me and think I was important. That time together taught me out to be proud of myself, for me.
No matter how hard I tried to hide it, he always knew when I had a bad day. Even when I was pissy and brushed him off, he persisted and he would always take me for a drive to get away from things and talk it out. We wouldn't come home until we had talked long enough to make things feel better.
He did what he could to make me one of the cool kids. He would take my friends and me out for ice cream of just drive us around in his sports car so that we felt grown up and cool.
He would always take the time to help me with school work. Even after I started studying things that weren't in his field he did his best. If I had a hard paper in college he would go to the bookstore and find a book he thought would help and overnight it to me. Most of the time the books weren't that helpful, but knowing he wanted to help that much was important.
When we moved and I had to start a new school I was unbelievably upset. The first day of school when they called the parents into an orientation of their own, my dad pulled a chair aside and cried at how much his decision to take a new job was hurting me. We all knew it was the right decision in the long run but it killed him to see me so upset in the process.
He paid attention to the little things and the details. He knew how simple things could change a person's day, including a kid's. Getting to ride on the tractor or go see the new Deere. Going to the produce stand for a snack. The reward of a Saturday morning donut at the local shop for a job well done on the paper route. Never big things. Never enough to spoil us. Just enough that I knew I was never far from his mind and that my happiness meant more to him than anything money could buy.
He's not quite the man he used to be but that was my daddy. I was lucky to be raised by such a kind and thoughtful man. I'd be the luckiest girl on the planet to find someone like that again.
Posted by Princess Cat at April 15, 2005 05:45 PM @ 05:45 PM in Drama // Permalink