Every year I spend the weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s
Day reflecting on the old people. (Aren't my ma and pa pretty?) Celebrating
Mother’s Day has always come with relative ease. Gifts for mom were easy. Spending time with my mother even easier.
Father’s Day has
always been more of a challenge. By the
time I was twelve I’d pretty well exhausted the requisite supply of socks and
ties we’d pick out for my daddy. One
year I’d even given him a rock to use as a paperweight. Not sure whose brilliant idea that was but I’ll
take credit for the creativity. If I
recall correctly, it was a pretty rock and I don’t think it cost me more than
an afternoon in my mother’s garden searching for the perfect, naturally
polished stone.
Over the years the perfect gift has given way to the perfect
card. Depending on whether or not my
daddy and I were on speaking terms determined whether it was a Hallmark or just
your generic dollar store variety. Son-shine took gift-giving for his favorite Pop-Pop to a whole new level. Like two peas in a pod there was no choice
the boy ever made that wasn’t his grandfather’s best gift ever, something he’d
been wanting since forever.
My sibling and I have very different relationships with our
parents. I believe that over the years,
as an adult, I’ve had to work harder at my relationship with my father. I know that choices I made before I was
twenty put a significant wedge between us.
There are moments that I think that we are still butting heads against
that wall.
And then there are times when I am very much my father’s
daughter, his one and his only Baby Girl, the nickname he still calls me by if
he is not calling me by my full name.
When things between us are golden even a Hallmark isn’t good enough for
my very favorite guy. But no matter what
the mood of the moment, I cannot deny that the man, who raised me, raised me
well. There can be no denying that my
father loves me immensely. And it has
been my Father’s love that has motivated most everything I’ve done and
accomplished since I was a little girl.
We have our moments, my Daddy and I. But there is nothing better than being my
daddy’s Baby Girl. So, to all the father’s
out there, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. And to my
favorite daddy in the whole wide world, I love you very much!
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