Once you become a parent, these days take on a whole new meaning. While Father’s Day was always a time to remember all that our own fathers did for us, now that I’m a Dad myself the holidy has changed. I spend the day thinking how lucky I am to have such a wonderful, beautiful, healthy, smart little girl. She is, as someone put it yesterday, the “apple of my eye” and I couldn’t be prouder of anyone in the world.
I have never actually spent Father’s Day with her since we have always lived in different states. And I won’t lie or try to pretend, it is very hard to be away from her, today or any day. All I wanted all day was just to hug and kiss her, but I can’t. I talked to her. She told me she loves me, and she was sending me a toolbox she made in preschool for me (how stinking cute?). And she invited me to “come stay at her house sometime soon”.
I miss her. But I know she carries my love with her. She knows her Daddy loves her, is proud of her, and thinks of her constantly. I am grateful to my father for teaching me the courage, the love, and the strength it takes to be a dad. But most of all, I am thankful to my daughter for teaching me what it truly means to be a man.
