by Lisa H Warren

Created on: May 25, 2007

In the song, "You and Me Against the World" there is a line, "..and when one of us is gone and one of us is left to carry on." This line brings to mind the nature of the father/daughter relationship because even after a daughter loses her father her relationship with him will stay with her throughout her lifetime. A daughter, though, doesn't just carry on. She carries with her her relationship with her father.

My father and I had a great relationship. He was nice to me, which may have been the main reason we had such a close relationship. He was of high integrity, and he had dignity. He never yelled and never hit anyone. He was a hero when it came to the way he fixed anything broken. He was intelligent and hard-working. When my mother was in the hospital a few times he did the cleaning and cooking and diaper-changing as well as she did. He treated my mother and anyone he knew with kindness and generosity. He made it clear that he thought well of me. Beyond these things he did, though, he talked with me regularly about all kinds of things. Perhaps most importantly, he saw me as an intelligent, human being who was worthy of respect and who had the ability to do anything she set her mind to. So often, fathers see a "little princess" and can't see the human being behind their daughter's feminine appearance and demeanor.

My father was never one to treat me as his "little princess". He was the one to know I was so much more than that. He was the one who made sure I had a Joe Palooka Bop-Bag to punch (or, as it turned out, drag out half-inflated as my "husband" when I played house). He was the one to go against the opinion of some of my aunts and get me a peddle car, even though in those days those cars were often considered boys' toys. He didn't try to make a boy out of me. He made no secret of the fact that he thought I was "beautiful" in special-occasion dresses. It was just that he did not believe that my being a girl should limit me. It was also that he saw my potential as almost limitless.

When I was a teenager he and I would go out together. We got into a routine where he would cook breakfast for us early mornings on weekdays. Whether during breakfast or after dinner or while we were out he would talk. He'd talk about politics, life, the war, patriotism, and anything else he found to discuss. While many kids pull a little away from parents during their teen years, those were the years that brought me closest to my father. Its a good thing they did, too, because

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>