Just me and my dad

Dec. 14th prompt: Appreciate. What's the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

I was Daddy's little girl. Riding in the child seat on the back of his bike on the way home from kindergarten, the fence on both sides as we escaped the school and rode through the park toward home. Collecting tadpoles I hoped would grow into frogs; catching my first (and only) fish and throwing it back into the pond; reading stories; proud to "teach" his class at school; squeezing through the cemetery fence behind our house to play across the street in the "Hundred Acre Woods." Everything was learning, stories, play, silliness, and the voices of characters, with every creature having its own silly voice.

Around age 10, I grew up quickly, into an awkward adolescence in which a silly father was more embarrassing than fun.

Dad may have lost his crown at home, but he was still the king of the high school where he was a teacher--teasing students with endearing nicknames; playing practical jokes; rewarding good behavior with a can of pop or chocolate bar. He had two blood children, but played the role of father to thousands more.

When I was 16, he was hit with his own bout of severe anxiety and depression, which in turn, worsened mine. I wasn't old enough or experienced enough to reach out to him with understanding; simply a frightened teenager who still had to follow her parents' wishes, no matter how they acted themselves.

As boys entered my life, my dad felt swept aside all the more. Not feeling my father's love, I became the cliché of looking for love everywhere else.

Our relationship remained tenuous as I moved on to university. Then we discovered email and slowly began to communicate again.

When Pete told my dad he was planning to propose to me, my Dad said later that he couldn't say no--Pete was exactly like him. I'd spotted it myself when I refused someone else's idea that Pete and I start dating. "I can't! He's exactly like my dad!" I said.

Similar, yes, but not exactly. And we all adored him. On our brief visits to Sarnia, my father had a taste of fun again, as he and Pete played games in a video arcade and gobbled down M&M's in the movie theatre. Pete brought him movies--science documentaries that they both loved, plus shows like House and CSI that he and my mom started watching together.

Still struggling with my childhood issues, I often felt my parents liked my boyfriend/husband better than they liked me. Looking back, I must have been jealous of him--for his own sense of fun and silliness--traits that still bewildered me for all they'd meant in the past.

When Pete left me, my dad once again became my champion, riding the delicate line between a father's anger at the boy who broke his daughter's heart and a father's love for the man his daughter still loved. The three of them: Mom, Dad and Pete moved me into my own small apartment after we sold our house, my dad often driving the 2-and-a-half hours from Sarnia to surprise me with groceries, drag me out to a restaurant, or fix something around the house. He often spent the night, sleeping on the couch as Pete had done for so many months, his very presence reassuring.

He took me out for breakfast one Sunday morning, as Pete and I had done for nearly seven years--a ritual I'd missed desperately since he said the word "divorce." And we talked, for the first time since my childhood, with honesty and without bitterness. Part of the reason I moved back to Sarnia was to mend our broken relationship the way my sister and I had and my mom and I had over the years I'd lived in Kitchener.

Ironically, I spend more time with my dad now than I do anyone else. He teaches in town and my parents share a car, so he often stops by after school to play with my cats, listen to me cry, help me wash dishes, give me a reason to cook a meal, or watch an episode of House. And in less than 3 months, we've talked on the phone more than we did in 10 years.

It's funny, but if I had somewhere warm to go, I'd no longer feel held back. I've reached my goal--in my eyes, my dad and I are close now; close enough to hug him goodbye without somehow feeling guilty, or to lean on his shoulder and tell him how I really feel.

In a year filled with broken promises, my dad has kept his--to be there when I need him. I may not quite know how to show him I appreciate him, but after all these years, I finally do. And in this final week before Christmas, I'm not frantic about what to buy him--he never wants much in the way of things. I hope the greatest present I can give him will be having his daughter back--newfound sense of silliness and all.