A Letter To My Daddy

Dear R. D.,

I know to some this is a little [okay, maybe a lot] crazy, but I've wanted to write you this letter for a long time now just to share things with you that have been on my mind over the 31 years that have passed since you died. I want to begin by saying that for the 9 years that I had the honor of having you as my Daddy I am forever grateful, though sometimes I feel cheated in so many ways.

I can still remember your funeral and so many things that went through my 9 year old brain that day. I remember all the cars in the procession that trailed the limo in which I rode from the funeral home to Jefferson Barracks Veteran's Cemetary. I remember that looking out the back window, I was unable to see the end of the line of cars that followed us. Later, I heard that there were more than 200 cars in that line and even today I am amazed by the sheer number of people who thought enough of you to show up. Following the funeral, there was the repast at Robert Lee and Annie Ruth's house if I am not mistaken, and I remember me, my sister, and brothers hiding under a table with a long table cloth being mad at everybody there for "having a party" when our Daddy was dead. To this day, I have issues with attending funerals and rarely attend them or repasts unless I am in danger of offending someone I care about.

You were a really good Daddy while I had you. I was so young when you left that there are only a few true memories that remain. I remember that you rarely if ever disciplined any of us, you left that up to Moma. I remember how you used to bring us to the table and give each of us a knife and fork to use to beat on the table as we all chanted "We wanna eat...we wanna eat" to rush Moma in getting the meal on the table [Now that I'm a grown woman, I must say, "You know that was just WRONG!"]. I remember sitting on your stomach while you lay on your back watching TV and I cleaned your fingernails during my version of giving you a "manicure". I remember wanting to always be the apple of your eye and throwing a stone fit one Easter Sunday when I was about five and you tried to take a picture of Jackie without me in it. You ended up taking this picture of me crying in my Easter coat and dress...aaahhhhhh...

Everytime I hear Stevie Wonder's You Are The Sunshine Of My Life I think of you, my wonderful Daddy. Over the years, there were many times I wished you could have been here with me. Most of the time, I understood and accepted that things were the way they were, but sometimes...I felt like I felt in this picture...I WANTED MY DADDY!

The times that I missed you most occurred during my college years. My room mate was the oldest daughter of an absolutely wonderful father who adopted me as his fourth daughter once she and I became roomies. I attended church with them weekly and due to the influence of her family, I decided to get baptized in their church. As much as I loved her family and spending time at their house, seeing her with her father always sent pangs of all I was missing by not having you here through my heart.

There are so many things I wish. I wish that you had been able to watch me and my sister and brothers grow up. I wish you could have been here to share with Moma all the wonderful opportunities she had to be proud of each of us. It would have been wonderful to have you at my high school and college graduations. I would give just about anything for you to know the six grandsons (one provided by me) that you now have. For the privelege of your point of view on some of the issues and obstacles I have faced, and your input on raising Ryan, I would have traded just about anything.

I often wonder in what ways I would be different if you had not had to leave me so soon. I know for sure that some of the guys I dated would have been run off long before the first date ever happened as your plan to keep me and Jackie in the house until we were in our 30's is the stuff of legends ;-) I'm often told that I'm very smart and I always reply that because I come from two brilliant people I can't help it! I see so clearly the impact having been my mother's daughter has had on me, but I often wish you could have been around longer so that I could have gotten to know you and subsequently myself better as well. What character traits do I have as a result of being your daughter I wonder? How did your death change me for better or worse? These are the questions I may never be able to answer.

You'll be happy to know that I am a "glass half-full" person, and as such, I have decided that there is a silver lining even in the cloud that is your early departure from my life. I have a girlfriend who has never been able to have a successful long-term relationship with a man because she is convinced that her father's decision to abandon his family when she was a small child has doomed her to be a failure when it comes to men. She believes that since her father didn't love her enough to stick around, and she didn't have him around as she was growing up to learn from, she can't possibly expect any other man to stick. I tell her that her ideas are nonsense as I didn't have a father around either but I don't buy into this bull. She says that you did not leave me by choice so its different; to which I respond, "Not here is not here!" I can't buy into her misery because I know better than this. The "gift" of your going while I was still so young but old enough to realize how very much you loved me, is that I now believe that I am entitled to the best a man hoping to be my partner has to offer. Afterall, if a girl doesn't get to keep her Daddy around as long as she needs him, shouldn't she get the next best thing...a partner who is ready, willing, and able to step in and finish the job of loving her that her Daddy started?

Having recently started this blog, I have been welcomed into the lives of so many people via their blogs. Wandering around the internet, I stumbled upon the blog of "sarccastik" a dedicated married father of a young daughter. Reading his posts about the joy and pride he feels as he raises his baby daughter reminded me of the stories Moma tells me about how much you wanted her to have a girl when she was pregnant with me and how once I was born, you had me moved to the front of the nursery at the hospital so that you could see me as you passed the nursery window while carrying out your work duties as you worked for the hospital in which I was born. Short as the time we had together was, it still produced wonderful memories as well as an awareness of exactly how special I was to you.

So thank you to my Daddy R.D. for giving me a great introduction to what being loved by the opposite sex is supposed to feel like [at least the parts that matter most!]. I hope I make you proud and though you're not here, I carry you always in my heart. Love Always, Your Firstborn Daughter, Sharon