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Being There

Today is Fathers' Day.

My own father left when I was seventeen, though it wasn't his choice. It was cancer. I've gotten used to Fathers' Days without him, and most years, I do okay. Although I don't think I'll ever stop missing him. It's been thirty-one years since my mom woke me in the middle of the night and said, "Daddy died." He wasn't a super-dad. He wouldn't have won a contest if I'd written an essay about all the things he did for us. Truth be told, he didn't really do a lot of hands-on parenting. He didn't coach our little-league teams. He didn't take us fishing or camping or hiking. He didn't come home from work each night and play ball with us or go to bat for us when a teacher "unfairly" disciplined one of us.

So what did he do? He loved us, and we knew it. We were safe as long as he was there. He was our protector, our provider. Dad always knew what to do. We didn't have to worry. He would right any wrong; and although we didn't like it at the time, he wasn't afraid to let us learn some things for ourselves . . . the school of hard knocks, he called it.

He wasn't exceptionally tender or gentle. He was a good German. He was fun. He was funny. He was strict. He was stubborn. He loved us. He loved our mom. He was home most nights. He was there when we needed help with our math homework. He was there at the dinner table. He was there on lazy Sunday afternoons. He was there. Period.

Many years after he died, a tornado tore our home from its foundation. My husband, son, nephew, and I were home when it happened. It left me with a sense of intense insecurity - if my home can be ripped away in a matter of seconds, what in my life is safe? What in my life is sure? Surprising myself, I realized I wanted my dad more at that time than I had at any other time since he'd died - even more than I had wanted him to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day (and that's saying a lot). I yearned to curl up in his embrace like I had done as a little girl. If I could only do that everything would be okay. He wouldn't have to do anything - just be there as he had always been and be dad.

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