A Daddy’s Love

There was a mystery about my dad I never uncovered. He was a quiet man who appeared emotionless, although I was told he struggled with a quick temper. Maybe the quiet was his way of dealing with personal demons. I’ll never know. Growing up, I had a healthy respect for him. Since he was 6’5” and 250 pounds, I would’ve been a fool not to.

As a child with four siblings, I didn’t spend a lot of time pondering my parents’ marriage. So, when Daddy went away for three months near the end of my eighth-grade year, I took it at face value—he was sent to Colorado on a work-related assignment. Something was off, but I was too self-centered to give it much thought. I had more important issues—like the upcoming end-of-the-year dance. My first, and I was all kinds of nervous.

Introverted and gawky, I couldn’t imagine any boy asking me to dance. One of the perks of Daddy not being around was that I could share my heart in letters to him. I wouldn’t have to see the disinterest in his eyes, as I was sure he didn’t much care about my teenage angst. So, I wrote him a long note about my fears and slipped it into the mailbox a week before the dance. No, we didn’t have computers or email or smartphones back then. Everything went by snail mail.

I wasn’t surprised when a response didn’t come before the big day. Colorado was a long way from Northern California. We lived in a small town across the Bay from San Francisco. And even if distance wasn’t an issue, I figured Daddy had better things to do than write me. I had a brother and three sisters, and there was no telling if he was juggling letters from them, too.

My best friend Maria and I walked home dejected after the dance. Both of us had basically held up the gymnasium wall while everyone else seemed to have a great time. We felt cranky and hopeless. If this was how eighth grade ended, what would high school be like? Total social losers.

I slipped into the house to find the mail beneath the slot on the living room floor. Sitting on top of the haphazard stack was a letter for me from Daddy. Just knowing he took the time to answer lifted my spirits a little. Even if a boy didn’t care a lick for me, Daddy did. I went back outside and sat on the brick steps, that precious letter in my hands. I studied my name in the middle of the envelope and Daddy’s return address in the top corner. His handwriting was a work of art. He grew up at a time when penmanship was taught just like math, science, and language. I worked my nail-bitten finger beneath the seal and ripped it open.

Dear Jennie…he started off with a little about where he was staying and how much he missed being home. Then he got to the point, even though it was too late. I’m sure there will be a lot of boys who will want to dance with you. Why wouldn’t they? You’re a sweet, beautiful young lady. But if they don’t ask, I’m sure it’s because they’re just too shy. I was like that growing up. Too nervous to ask the pretty girls to dance for fear they’d turn me down.

Tears welled in my eyes and choked off the air in my throat. Daddy was wrong—the boys had no trouble asking everyone else to dance besides Maria and me. But he’d said I was sweet…and beautiful. I’d never felt beautiful a day in my life. In fact, I thought Janice Ian’s old hit song “Seventeen” was a prophetic word just for me. But Daddy thought I was beautiful and right then it was enough.

Fast forward several years. My first husband of twenty-two years had walked out on our marriage with no warning while my precious mom was nearing the end of her battle with leukemia. It was God’s perfect timing, because even though I was devastated and ashamed, it allowed me to spend time with my parents. I was a middle school teacher who had a special affinity for gawky eighth graders, but my weekends were free to make the four-hour drive to be with Mom.

One evening, after Mom had gone to sleep, I sat in the living room with Daddy. I thought about the months he was in Colorado. It wasn’t just a business-related trip—my parents were separated. But twenty-six years later, he was still there.

“Hey, Daddy?”

He slid his focus from the television to me. “Yeah?”

I hesitated to tiptoe into hurtful territory, but I wanted to understand what happened back then so maybe it would help me process my own pain. “Remember when you were working in Colorado? I was in the eighth grade then.”

He nodded. “Sure.”

I cleared my throat. “What happened?”

A frown marred his brow. “What d’you mean?”

With a shrug, I focused on my hands folded in my lap. “You and Mom. You were kind of separated, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.” A sigh filled the room. “It was your mom’s idea. She was pulling away from me and kept pushing the idea of spending time apart.” He shrugged. “Guess what she really wanted was a divorce. Asked me to move out.”

Divorce. The word pierced my heart. It’s what my husband wanted, too, and I had no choice in the matter. “So, how’d you change her mind?”

He chuckled. “I came back from Colorado and refused to leave. What was she going to do? We had five kids, and there was nowhere she could go. It’s not like she could strong-arm me.” That was certainly true. Mom was a full foot shorter and half Daddy’s weight. “After a while, she got used to me being around and gave up the idea.”

Emotionless. It was a word I’d often associated with Daddy. But I thought about the night of my Junior Prom. He was taking pictures and suddenly mumbled something about the battery in his camera needing to be changed. Later, Mom told me he’d gotten so choked up at the sight of me all grown up, he had to leave the room.

Flash forward several years later when my sweet daughter was lying in a coma after a car accident. I called Mom and Daddy every evening to give them an update on her progress—or lack of progress. Daddy would answer the phone, but after a quick greeting, he’d pass it off to Mom. It made me think he didn’t care about his granddaughter.

“Why won’t he talk to me?” I asked Mom after the third night at the hospital.

“Oh, Jennie. He can’t,” she said with a sigh. “The minute he hears your voice, he starts crying.” My emotionless Daddy had been sitting in his bedroom sobbing.

We thought we’d lose him the day of Mom’s funeral. He landed in the hospital, his will to live gone. I couldn’t understand how he could want to leave the five of us kids until my uncle chimed in. “Your mom is the love of my brother’s life. Has been since the day he first met her.” Daddy didn’t die that day. He hung around for another four years. When he knew his time was at hand, he was giddier than I’d ever seen him.

“I’m going to be with your mama again,” he’d said from his hospital bed, a big grin on his face. He was like a kid on Christmas morning. It took me a lot of years to understand the depth of my daddy’s love—for Mom and for me. It’s too bad I didn’t realize it sooner. I won’t make that mistake with my Heavenly Father.

People often ask me where I get inspiration for my stories and characters. Life. My work-in-progress will have minute threads of my experiences running through it. Abandonment issues. Daddy issues. Life issues. That’s how the Lord wired me to receive His message.

And writing them into novels is how He wired me to share them.

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