In honor of Father's Day, I thought I would write a little bit about my father. Yes, I really call him father. (I also refer to him as old man too, but father is what comes out most of the time.) My father is a funny man, and most people wouldn't even know that because he is a quite man. I am the baby and my father has been there for me whenever I have needed him. He let me move back in with him while I was getting my Master's and student teaching and has been very supportive since the "incident." The greatest thing he has done for me in the last few months is just say nothing. I have a very critical family, whom I love very much, but they can bite with their words sometimes. My family can compliment you and insult you in one breath, and then make you laugh about it with them. (Don't get me wrong I love this crazy bunch more than anything, but as they like to say, I am very sensitive.) Anyhoo, so my father has been critical of me in the past, "why did you get those tattoos?", "Are you sure you want to take that job?", "You need to lose some weight." Yep, again this is all said with a smile...but in the last two months he just hugs me and says I love you and that is it. The last time I saw him, he hugged me and said I want you to get better and I know you will. I am sitting here crying as I write this, because my father is not a man of much emotion, so this was big for him. My sisters can contest to this...I think it was when we were adults he started saying I love you. He is still a man of few words.
In our childhood, our father would do some pretty funny things. Seriously, it was like he took notes from Bill Cosby on how to make your children laugh. He would walk into a room as my twin and I were playing with a friend, put a dishrag on his head along with a blossom hat and say "I'm a little Dutch girl, can I come and play?" Mornings in my house, if you read about my mother, consisted of her vacuuming at 6 am, and my father singing a morning song. To this day he will bust out in song about whatever he is doing. I do the same thing. In fact I sang the "happy birthday" song to Ryan this morning. In the recent years since the passing of my dog Lilah, who loved my father and chose him as her human, he has started creating elaborate stories of the dogs. They like to leave "crime scenes" for him when he comes home from work. Sampson is typically the witness and Ali McBeagle is the culprit. This last week has been a story of the smhoos, they are a friendly cartoon character, in foam form that hold your cell phone on a desk. He has been sending me stories of what they are doing and pictures as well. I think the last one was Smhoos as Whoopi Goldberg talking on the View.... and it goes from there. My father may be quite but he has a huge imagination and I love him for that. I get my creativity from him and I thank if for that. I doodle because he doodles, I sing because he sings, I vacuum because, no wait my mom vacuums.
So, to all the fathers out there love your daughters because that is how they know how a man should treat them when they get older. If your father is not with you, they are looking down on you and I am sure they are proud. If your father wasn't in your life, he missed out on someone great!
Be kind and give dad a hug!!!
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