Today my Father is eighty years old. I really can’t believe it, and I’m sure he can’t either. I want him to know on this special day, how grateful I am for the relationship we have had all these years, and that I still think of him as the fixer, even after all this time.
When I was newly married, and a silly girl of 19, I asked my husband to fix my broken necklace.”Fix it?!? Nah, we will just have to get you a new one, or take it to get fixed.” I was stunned. “But, my father always fixes my broken jewelery.” “Well, take it to your dad then,” was the reply. No disrespect to my husband, he was only 25 at the time, and since then has proved that he can fix almost anything that can, and does break in a home, and he can even build the home itself.
I guess what surprised me was that not all men are like my father. Not every man can fix anything that needs fixing, or wants to. Not every man knows the answers to impossible questions like, “which one is worse, a heart attack or a stroke?” Or, “is a tornado worse than a hurricane?” Or, “who is Dow Jones?” And not every man will take the time to explain the answers to a little girl who still remembers needing to know, 40 years later. Some men do not care to be subjected to the Little House on the Prairie series, all eight books of them, read aloud by a fumbling, bumbling eight year old beginner. Some men do not stay up late to fashion the best polyhedron ever, for a girl struggling in geometry, or spend an afternoon teaching her how to stop and start on a hill with a standard, so that she no longer avoids stop lights on an incline.
My father and I spent a lot of time together when I was growing up. He was usually puttering around outside, and I often tagged along. We spent a lot of time just hanging out, not necessarily saying much. It wasn’t about what was said, it was the fact that he enjoyed spending time with me. A little girl learns a lot from a friendship with her father, most importantly she learns how she wants to be treated by men in the future. I’m thankful for the ease of our relationship which many little girls do not have with their fathers. Sadly, some have grown up with a distrust in men; they were not the fixers they should have been in their lives, they were the breakers. I’m thankful that he set the bar high, and that my husband has lived up to those expectations, except for maybe fixing that broken necklace.
Happy Birthday, Dad!!
