Tomorrow is my fathers 60th birthday. Birthdays are a time of celebration! There is a part of me that wants to buy a cake, a card and a special gift. There is a part of me that wants to take my thirty three year old self and climb into his lap and say, "Happy Birthday Daddy!" Many girls would do this. Many would never hesitate. I hesitate.
My father and I seemed to have grown apart over the years. He lives twenty minutes away and we see each other almost never. We talk almost never. We love almost never. How could this be? I could write a complete novel on the story of my life explaining how A lead to B and now we are at C. But the blog can only hold so much here and now.
I would like to tell him how much I do love him and how much I feel as if I am still a child. If I could go back to the age of five, I would have him again. I miss our walks. I miss our talks. I miss how he reached out to me. It seemed as if I were his perfect little being back then. Back then, I was.
Life happens. We grow. Our parents grow too. We realize that they are not always superhero beings that lasso the moon, stop the rain and make everything okay. They are human. They have lives. They live, breathe and feel. They also have pasts. They were once five with parents of their own.
My dad is a man. He has a heart and a life. In his own way, I know that I am still there within it.
I want him to know that he is still within mine too. I may not have the card, the cake or the gift. I might not be able to see him or crawl into his lap or even into his mind, but I am there. I am thinking of him... In more ways than he will ever know.
He is still my dad and he always will be. I am older now. I understand things more clearly. The past is the past. Time cannot always make it better, but it can allow room for understanding, growth and forgiveness. As humans, we have the capabilities to say and do things that hurt others. This includes hurting ourselves. Sometimes this is intentional. Other times it is out of self defense and unintentional. Words have power. They can heal. They can hurt. Sometimes there are just no words at all. There is only time.
When we become adults, we have the responsibility to create boundaries that are healthy for us. From one grown up to another, we are to take responsibilities for our actions. Does this always happen? No. But we cannot take the responsibilities of another. As grown ups, we are only responsible to and for ourselves. Today, I take the responsibility to tell my dad I love him. I wish things were different but that would make us different. Today, I wish to tell him that I needed him. I mourn him. I ache for him, sometimes. But things are as they are and people are who they are.
Tomorrow my dad will be sixty years old. Thirty three years ago he did the best thing he could have done for me. He gave me life. For that, I will forever be grateful. He also taught me how to be compassionate in his own way. He showed me how to laugh, how to look at someone eye to eye and say, "I see one eye in a monster" and how NOT to dance. He showed me how to run from roaches and how to love the little things in life. I thank you dad for this.
As tomorrow nears, I know that he will be thinking about his day. I want him to know I am thinking of this too. I will call him. I will make small talk. But no matter what, I want him to know that I wish I could crawl through the phone and into his lap just to have him hold me once more. No matter how "grown up" I am, I will always be his little girl.
So sweet April. His legacy lives in you. :)
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