My dad already HAD 4 children, the last 3 of which were also
girls. So me being the last one,
ALSO a girl, and having the athletic talents of my mother (!) I was readily
handed over to my mother. I was
her child.
A lot changed however, as I grew up. I don’t know if it was gradual or if it
was that sudden smack-you-in-the-face attack of love your offspring afflict you
with the minute you meet them, but somewhere between my entry into the world
and the age at which I can clearly remember complicated stuff like whether or
not one of my parents likes me, I know my dad loved me. In fact, he even TOLD me he loved me.
ONCE.
I remember that day clearly because it was the day I finally
got kicked off the basketball team.
I say finally because I had just barely scraped through in
grade’s 6-9. Each year my abysmal
basketball skills coupled with my neurotic performance anxiety meant that I came
closer and closer to being cut.
And each summer, in preparation for the upcoming season, I would set out
to practice on my own over and over again while dad watched in futile
helplessness as he shook his head and cursed my mother for giving me her
athletic skills.
And then finally in grade 10 I got cut.
I won’t say it came as a shock to anyone, but to the 15-year-old
version of myself it was pure heartbreak.
My dad greeted me in the front hall that night when I came
home, sobbing, and met me with open arms.
He told me he loved me because he didn’t know what else to say. And because he didn’t know what else to
do. And because he did.
My dad has grown in leaps and bounds since his lone
confession of love to me in grade 10.
The birth of my children, combined with the softness of age, has
loosened his sentimentality and flow of emotion. This weekend when Toby gave him his Father’s day Card my dad
read it out loud and marveled at the pictures. I could tell when my dad picked the card up that he was
determined to love it.
Toby’s artistic talent equally parallels my athletic
talent. To an outside observer, my dad’s father’s day card was a
mishmash of pieces of paper with green highlighter and chicken scratch marks with
the lone words HAPPY FATHERS DAY PAPA scattered across the pages. Try to absolve my dad of any
embarrassment as he opened it, I asked Toby to EXPLAIN to my dad what all of
the “drawings” represented.
Toby stared at me blankly.
My dad stared at the card blankly.
Then, in a moment of pure grand-parental-genius, and doing
something I haven’t seen him do in over a decade, my dad decided to improvise.
“I see what this means, it’s a poem” my dad said as he began
to recite, in perfect iambic pentameter, an impromptu poem Toby’s father’s day
card had inspired in him.
We sat there all too stunned to grab an iphone to record it,
but the gist of my dad’s poem went something like this,
“My dearest darling Papa, I love you love you love you and
so do I my darling Toby so too do I love you.”
That was the first random sketch. The other ones received similar poetic prophecies of
love. Toby sat there with a huge
grin on his face and listened attentively,
“Yes, Papa, that’s EXACTLY what I was trying to write.”
It wasn’t long before Mia handed him HER card (a similar
array of mishmash –feathers, stickers and felt letters stuck to a piece of
construction paper) and my dad belted out yet another poetic ode to his love of
her.
Seeing my dad with my kids is seeing a tangible form of
love. He is content just to sit
and watch them play, make a mess of themselves over dinner, or run around in
circles. Whatever activity they
are engaged in – be it mischief or messiness, his happiest time is sitting
there watching them.
I may have been my mother’s kid. I may have grown of up deprived of nightly “I love you’s”
and sappy father-daughter moments.
But I have always known the truth and watching it manifest now in the
love between my kids and my dad is a gift I will always cherish.
Happy father’s day, dad…today and always.
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