Never a Daddy's Girl

Yesterday was father’s day. I am a bit ambivalent about this day on the calendar. Perhaps it is because I don’t have a father. Of course I must have had a father at one point, I mean, I am a living person right? 

As I read all of the posts on social media, I stopped at most to read them; I viewed the pictures that were posted, because after all, I care about the people I am connected to via social media. I waited for the words to form; I waited for the ping that sometimes begins in my belly, the distancing of myself from the present moments so that I can go inward. I write everything in my mind first before it either escapes a pencil onto my paper or my fingers tap away on my ever annoying keyboard.

I waited, and nothing came. I got nothing. I feel nothing really. No anger, no hate, no sadness. If I had to think about it long and hard, I would feel loss. Not of a person, but of a role, a void of love, caring, adoration, protection that never existed.

I never understood the term “Daddy’s girl”. Never felt it and never witnessed it. Even through the raising of my daughter, an extension of me, she is not familiar with the term, the feeling, the reality. She is without it, and we are both deprived of her joy and happiness of being a “daddy’s girl”. I always thought that seeing a girl with her daddy was a beautiful, almost magical scene to witness.  Now, as an adult, I have close friends who have girls that belong to their daddy in that special way, and I am ashamed to say, I just don’t get it.

My own father died when I was nineteen, and much of my life was lived without him. When my life did include him, it was not beautiful, or magical, or kind. It was not a life, laced with family dinners, and teachings, and love. It was a life lived with uncertainty, cruelty and alcoholism. 

The recollections I choose to commit to memory, I keep in a locked box.  The loss and heartbreak, I keep in the empty part of my heart. The loss for my daughter, well that hurts more than I imagined. I thought that I could give her everything that she needed and wanted and desired. I realize that even to insert loving caring men into her life, be it a wonderful step dad, friends or male family members, nothing can replace the unbending love of a father. Some things are just out of my control, and to not be able to give my daughter certain things in this life, haunt me every day. The desire for her to know the comfort, protection and love of being a “daddy’s girl”, well that is out of my control. No amount of my love can replace that, equipped with that knowledge, I am sad for her. She is sad for herself, once admitting to me that she was jealous of the relationship between a father/daughter to someone close to us.

While she may not be a daddy’s girl, she will be loved, every day, fiercely, unbending, and she will never doubt exactly the love that breathes in me, for her. 

To all the great daddy's out there, and the amazing step daddy's, I hope you had a wonderful day, deserving of the dad that you are!

Thanks for stopping by!