Daddy's Girl

I was always a daddy's girl.

That man shone like the sun for me.

The patience he showed as we tried to play backyard baseball when I clearly have no natural athletic ability at all.

The one time I managed to accidently hit the baseball with the bat and it went over our neighbour's fence a few feet away was cause for celebration. He took me to Baskin Robbins for ice cream and told me that I could say "I hit it over the fence" and that I never had to actually say which fence.

The infinite patience he showed trying to teach me (and later Spiderman) how to drive. It is a wonder we actually got out of there alive. We almost didn't. The first time I ever went driving after I got my learner's permit, I crashed our family car into a fire hydrant.

He kept me company all through the lonely Friday nights of my teenage years when I had no date or place to go. We had pizza and watched crap horror film or old westerns and laughed.

The way he was willing to do any project with me. If I had an idea we would toddle over to Lowes in his pick-up truck and buy lumber and then we would build it in the back garden.

He loved all my school children vicariously and bought them things like little plastic spider rings or their own individual miniature pumpkin at Halloween.

He used to say to me every day --and make me recite it back to him--these three important things:

1. Know that I love you

2. Check your facts

3. Stand up for what you believe in

So I guess I am still a daddy's girl.

I know, without a doubt that i am loved and I still feel that love despite our parting.

I am so careful to think before I speak and be armed with truth and not assumptions.

I am out there fighting the good fight, speaking up for the animals and people who have no voice. I'm getting ready for an anti-nuclear protest in the summer. I am foolish enough to believe that I can make a difference in the world.

Just like my dear old dad.

GLT--it has been 14 years since you died, but you are always in my heart.

I am still your girl.