My Father’s Legacy
Written by Kelly on April 21st, 2009Where Daddy?
My daughter wakes up every morning and this is the first thing that she asks. The eight hours of her sleep is too long spent away from the object of her affection. I used to be jealous of the way my daughter always wanted the strong arms of her Daddy, the scratching of his beard against her morning kiss. I used to be jealous, until I thought about this…
I was raised by a man with dirt under his nails. When I was small, my father worked three jobs to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. He often came home after working the night shift that turned to day then tumbled tired night again, only to fall asleep in his soup bowl. This was no disrespect to my Momma’s home cooking. It was just his sheer exhaustion.
My father used a hammer and nails to build my mother a coffee table for their first apartment. Later, he would build her the house that I grew up in. I like to imagine him at 19, meticulously sanding down the wood, whittling away at the curved lines of that first table. This was the poem he would create as a means to love my mom. He does not believe in wasting words.
My own children sit at that very table, now the centerpiece of my living room, and they color pictures for their Grandpa. He always brings them white-powered doughnuts every time he comes to visit them during the week. I come home from work to find them all wide-open grins of white sugar smiles. It is a tell-tale sign that they have spent a happy hour with their Pa. That they love him more than any other person in their lives makes perfect sense for anyone who sees it.
My father taught me how to body surf. He would bring my brother and I to the ocean, weekends in the summer. He would show us how to throw our bodies in time with the waves. He had mastered the art of allowing himself to be caught up in the perfect trajectory. We would ride along with him, hurtling rocket-quick into the white foam before beaching on the shoreline with bellies turned to kiss the sky. I attribute my love of water to the way my father taught me to read a ripcurrent, to understand how the cycle of tides is controlled by the ebb and flow of the moon.
My father is a man of science and hard fact, but he always encouraged the mystic, the poet, the daydreamer that was me, his only daughter.
I do not fear men, even after sexual assault, and a rough few years of giving myself away in an attempt to discover what was worthy of loving. Sticky bar floors and dirty bathroom fucking could not displace what I knew about men at the core, from watching the way my father takes my mother’s hand after 34 years of marriage, smiles as if it is as new as the first time.
You do not forget that you are worth something, even if the memory is long buried under your grief. I had a father that never raised a hand or a voice to any of us. My father would stay up late after a never-ending shift of dirty laborious work to patiently explain math problems or to help me rehearse for a school play.
My father took me for a long drive when I came home from college. I was all aflutter with the news of the dread-locked boy who wrote me poetry and kissed me sweet under the lamplight on a twilight evening at the college campus that was 7 hours away from home. My father told me confident that he would always love me. Four years later, we would drive alone in an old expensive car, hands clasped tightly to the other. When we arrived in front of the tiny historic chapel, he laughed and said it was not too late for me to turn back and go home. What I heard was him telling me that the choices I made each day of my life would always be my own.
It is not difficult to be fearless growing up my father’s daughter.
Where my Daddy?
I go to find my own daughter waiting impatient behind the baby gate at the top of the stairs. I pick her up. I kiss her cheeks. I breathe her in. I tell her sure, Your Daddy is downstairs, baby.
I carry her down and put her in the arms of the man that I have married. I place my daughter safe against his chest. I stand back watching, now proud instead of jealous, certain about what I am seeing. I head into the kitchen to call my father. I call to tell him Good Morning, but what I am really thinking is that I am so thankful for all that he has done.
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oh, dude.
this took my breath. and filled me both with envy, quiet, trickling envy and sorrow for what i never knew, and hope, great hope, that my daughter and son both grow up with that same fearlessness that they are loved.
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You were blessed.
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I am finally striking gold!
Been cruising around for weeks, months,
trying to connect with depth on The Web.
I love your “Ordinary Art”. Thank you.
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What a beautiful love letter to your father, who was always there but knew how to stay aside.
Reading this, I remembered some years ago, and I remember being jelous, but not envious. I took for refusal what probably was just confirmation that we parents were both there.
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Sweet memories and an even sweeter effect it has had on your current life and on your daughter.
Beautifully done Kelly.
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Wow. This took my breath away too…
This trueness, sureness of love and its depth and the fact that there is always a good man there to back you up, to protect and adore and cherish you, is what I wish for my daughter… And I know, as you do, that it’s what she’s getting. I agree with you, it does make that “want my Daddy!” sting a little bit less, knowing she’s getting something that SO MANY (too many!) children miss out on.
Your writing stuns me with its honesty.
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Wonderful. Beautiful expressed. Thank you so much for taking the time to write. I am sure that you will share this with both husband and father.
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This touched my heart. It kind of reminded me of what I never had.
Beautiful expressed. You are a very talented writer!
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That is the most beautiful tribute to your father. All women should have been so blessed as you have been.
Please print and send him this,instead of wishing one day you had.
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Indeed, a wonderful salute to your father. Although I’m generally of the “you can’t miss what you never had” philosophy, I do wonder what it would have been like to have had a father like that.
I attended a wedding once where the father & bride danced to “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” That’s what I wish for my kids.
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I see your father. I don’t know if it’s your dad but I see a man and I love him. Beautiful beautiful cycles of life. Beautiful beautiful writing.
(what do you mean you panic about words? you are of words.)
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I know I love your writing, and I think maybe your father, too. Men like him never grow old and the stories stay fresh. Thank you for sharing, Kel ~Rick
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I hope you let your Dad read this, although I suspect he is well aware of how much you love him. After all, you had to learn the gift of sharing your love from somewhere and from this beautiful post, it is very clear where that is…thanks…
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Every young man who would grow to be a father ought to read this – for there is a lesson here about what it is to be a man. A really well written lesson.
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you are doused in blessings
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What a beautiful tribute!
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What a beautiful and loving tribute to your father.
Every story you tell is so well-written, the turn of every phrase so perfect, capturing the feeling of a moment or a whole lifetime. Yet again, this has brought tears to my eyes.
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I’m sure your daughter will have equally glorious memories of growing up with her Daddy too. This was a beautiful tribute.
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Graceful. simply Beautiful.
It leaves me wondering what your own daughter will write someday. What memories she will share and what heartfelt stories she will tell about her own parents and their love for her.
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I’m glad that you had such a great dad. And that your daughter has a good dad too. My father taught me a lot but also had his own issues. I think that you are so fortunate to have had such an involved father.
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What a wonderful tribute to your dad, Kelly. I love this post. I will log it for those days – oh, wait, it’s every day – that my daughter wakes up with Daddy on her lips. You make me a better mom every time I read you, I think.
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What an amazing father you and your babies have. This was such a touching post, it reminds me of my own Dad.
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Absolutely beautiful. Beautiful writing, beautiful tribute. You really touched me with this one. Seeing my baby girls with their daddy makes my heart swell every time.
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Your father…wow. some folks are meant to be parents and all he did…rubbed off on you. and you see it.
what a wonderful gift!
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You made me cry. This is *so* beautiful. So true how much of an impact a great dad can have on his little girl. This should be required reading, partly because it’s just so true and is such and important message, really, for all dads or would be dads, but also partly just because your writing is always just awesome and beautifully done.
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How great was that. Thanks Kelly for sharing that so beautifully.
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Your words are so heartfelt and pure.
I adore you!!
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Wow!!! Your dad is one of the most wonderful people I know and I am a better person to have him in my life.
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This is an amazing post Kelly. Politics aside, deep down we’re pretty similar.