It is strange to have these days on the calendar when you don’t have your own father around to celebrate. My dad has been gone over a decade and it still seems weird to not make a card or wander the tie section at Macy’s looking for just the right one. Now I spend these days celebrating my husband who is a wonderful father to all three of our human kids and our fur baby, Sophie. This entails waking up earlier than he and preparing eggs Benedict which is the ultimate act of love from an egg-hater like me. The notion of an “egg sauce” literally curls my toes and Matthew has remarked it only somewhat deters him when I hand him his plate while stifling a gag.
My relationship with my dad was not an easy one. I think he viewed me -his last child- as the final frontier of possibility. If the boys didn’t manage to achieve everything he dreamt, he always had me to hold out hope for. Disclaimer—My brothers are all very successful men but as we humans do, they made mistakes along the way. I always felt extra pressure to not make mistakes. I wanted to achieve so my dad wasn’t upset about my report card, I wanted to be pretty, so he was proud of me, and I wanted to be good enough to be loved by a man who I always saw as slightly unreachable. From my earliest memories, I recall my dad telling me that he wanted a daughter who was a “tall, willowy, blonde”. I had only a few blonde highlights in the summertime, was thick and sturdy, and only managed to be tall when I was in grade school and it made me stand out as weird. I was always aware that I wasn’t quite what he wanted but boy did I try.
After dinner, on nights when he didn’t return to campus for a lecture, dad and I would walk the dog and talk about school. Sometimes he took me on photo shoots where I would pose on the steps of Hawthorne Hall and he would fancy himself a photographer with the camera he inherited from Aunt Mavis. His two favorite photography subjects were me and his roses and I held my own until my middle school awkwardness made the flowers a safer focus.
I have long been compared to my dad and have both felt proud and dismayed by the comparison. We certainly have similarities. I have his smile, his vocabulary and his love for engaging with people. I have his appreciation of physical humor, his love of cheese and like him, have spent the majority of my professional life working in education. What I think is different, perhaps profoundly so, is that I emulated my mother’s heart. I decided from the time I first held a baby doll that having a family would be my greatest priority. I left work early to attend games, drive to and from practices and ballet. I wanted my kids to feel that no matter what they did they were loved completely and most by me. My dad certainly loved us, but he wasn’t always there and often chose his role at the college over his role in our family. He left an indelible mark on each of his kids and I think we all sought to reach him, and make him proud. Strangely, even though he isn’t still here, I am still looking over my shoulder seeking his smile and a few words of praise. I probably always will.
