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Health & Fitness

Two Simple Words: Thank You

A daughter's relationship with her dad gives the Sorority Mom a special treasure trove of memories to be grateful for.

I couldn’t be a Sorority Mom without there being a Fraternity Dad.  Although this blog chronicles my experiences navigating the newly traveled territory of being the mother of a college student, her dad is going through his own empty nest syndrome.  Discussing what we are both feeling at this juncture in our lives has brought to the forefront of my mind, and heart the sweetest moments they have shared through the years, and how fortunate I was to watch their special relationship unfold.  When I met her dad I immediately knew he was a man who not only loved children, but enjoyed them, and wanted to be a father.  Almost 18 months to the day after saying “I do”, his honey girl came into the world, and captured his heart.

Having had an emergency C-Section, and being put to sleep, it was her dad who first saw her, held her, fed and changed her, and whose eyes she looked into the first time she opened them.  Not healing as quickly as I hoped, it was her father who made bottles, did laundry, got up in the middle of the night, and carried the monitor everywhere he went in the house.  When I finally felt well enough to begin taking over the care he provided for our daughter so effortlessly, he was the one who hugged, and reassured me when I had my first breakdown, and swore she would be better off if he stayed home to take care of her, and I was the one who went back to work.  When he finally went back to work, he called throughout the day to check up on “his girls”, and when he arrived home he spent the first half hour talking, cooing, and playing with our daughter. 

I witnessed the emotional enormity of becoming a father early one morning, when our daughter was still a newborn.  I woke up around 7 a.m. to find him sitting at the kitchen table, cradling our daughter, staring into the backyard, and quietly crying.  I felt like an intruder, and didn’t want to blurt out “WHAT’S WRONG?!?!?” so I made a quiet sound to let him know I was in the doorway.  He never turned around, but 18 years later his words still bring tears to my eyes.

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“I’m thinking about my mom, and how happy she would have been to have a granddaughter.  I would give 10 years of my life if it meant she could be here with me for 5 minutes, to hug her, and just watch her hold her granddaughter.  She would have been a terrific grandmother, and I miss her so much.”

As our infant became a toddler, it was clear how much of a daddy’s girl we had on our hands.  Dresses, leotards, hair ribbons, and the color pink were banned from her closet by the age of 2, and replaced with work boots, sneakers, overalls, jeans, and sweatshirts.  She was always prepared in case daddy wanted to go on a hike, needed help in the garden, or asked her to keep him company as he fiddled around in the garage.  Hero status was bestowed upon him the day he taught her how to drive the ride on lawn mower, and let her loose. 

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Winters were especially fun; dad would bring out the three wheeler, attach her sled to the back, and drag her around the neighborhood on crystal clear, snow driven mornings, after receiving the snow day call from school.  Igloos, snow slides, and snowmen were the rewards for helping her dad shovel, which she did happily.  And, the day I came home to find her on the roof as her dad was putting up the Christmas lights, I realized I was right about the man I met years before; he loved kids, he enjoyed kids, and he loved being a dad, especially to this beautiful little girl.

At the ripe old age of five, their bond was sealed.  After her last dance recital, she informed us she no longer liked to be on the stage, and we decided to let her try her hand at T-Ball.  One of only 3 little girls on the team, her first whack at the t-stand sent the ball past the pitcher’s mound, and as she ran past the other kids who were picking grass, throwing their gloves in the air, and standing on the bases waving at their parents, she ran all the way home to a line-up of parents who were cheering, yelling, and laughing hysterically.  At her awards ceremony, her coach would say “One day we’re going to see her name in the paper”.  Every single day she would ask us to check the paper to see if her name was mentioned.  It would take eight more years, but he was right.

As with all of our children, the years pass, they grow up, friends, after school activities, and life in general peak their curiosity, and we find them spending less and less time with us, and more and more time with the new people they’ve welcomed into their lives.  The dynamic of the relationship our daughter had with her dad shifted, but their biggest bond remained softball.  It would be both a blessing and a curse; dad eventually became her coach, and I became a referee between the two of them, and sometimes between her dad, and the parents on the team.  As much as I prayed he would hand over the coaching reigns to another, looking back on those years only brings smiles to all of our faces, and I miss the many members of our softball family. 

One of the most heartfelt memories I treasure happened in the middle of a softball season that wasn’t going very well, which coincided with some difficulties her dad was experiencing at work, and a time in their relationship that found them locking horns more often than not.  For several weeks there was no sign of his usual jovial self, and our daughter finally realized her dad was under a tremendous amount of stress outside of our home, and decided he needed some relief, and she was going to provide it.  On our way to yet another travel tournament, she took out a CD, and popped it in, and “You Had A Bad Day” began to play.  She said she felt horrible he was going through so much, and decided to make a CD of songs she thought would cheer him up, and hopefully make things a little better for him.  I do believe he played that CD until it warped.  And, anytime that song comes on the radio, I play it loud, and find myself smiling through tears because the feeling I experience is so overpowering.

You see, I didn’t grow up with a good man who helped my mother raise me.  The relationship between a father and daughter was so foreign to me that it never took much of what I witnessed between my daughter and her father to bring me to tears.  Everything she experienced with her dad was something I, too, was experiencing for the first time.  Father/daughter dances, family vacations, the way he looked at her the first time she went to a school dance, her Sweet 16, and her senior prom, and the uncomfortable eyebrow raise he gave the first time he saw her in a bikini…every single moment leaves it’s brand on my heart, and in my soul.  

This past weekend we attended our daughter’s first collegiate softball game.  For me it was another bittersweet moment because unfortunately the memories we share as a family weren’t enough to keep us together as a couple, and the past two years have brought us from the pain of separation, to a new understanding of one another as good friends who share a lifelong bond.  We have given one another something no one can ever give us….our daughter.  He is the only other person on earth who knows what this beautiful young woman means to me, because she means exactly the same thing to him. 

We are sitting on the bleachers, and we’re watching her get up to the plate, swinging her bat, timing it with the pitcher, and I suddenly get choked up.

“Do you know what I’m thinking about right now?  Do you remember the first time a coach put a bat in her hand, and told her to hit the ball off the T-stand?”  I asked.

“Yep”, he responds with a grin.  “She ripped it clear across the field”.  We both laugh at the memory.

“All the parents, and the two coaches were cheering her on, and that little boy who was on the mound was chasing after her, trying to tag her out, and she ran as fast as she could until she got home.”  At that moment, I want to reach out and thank him, apologize for not being able to keep the forever promise I made so many years ago, but she’s up at the plate, and the moment has passed, and here we are cheering our college girl on like we have so many years before.

So, this is my thank you for giving me precious memories of our daughter, and her father.  Because of you, I had a front row seat to the beauty of a father/daughter relationship, and how it should be cherished.  You lived up to every wish, prayer, and hope I had as a child who dreamed of marrying a good man who would love, and protect our children.  God only blessed us with one child, but he blessed us with a great one, and he blessed our daughter with a one in a million dad.

As a couple time forced us to accept that we are destined to travel different paths, but our paths will eternally remain side by side because of the fact that we are, and will forever be a family. 

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