to the fathers in my life

Being an overweight teenager was not easy.  Last week I talked about being called a beached whale and I wish I could say that it was the only weight related incident I heard during my middle school years.  In a world of photo edited features and airbrushed faces, I was a pudgy wild haired girl who rarely used a comb and didn't yet know how to wear make up.

It's hard to live in a society where beauty is paramount and perfection expected.  I think that I have my own style of pretty but it's not perfect and you will never see me gracing the cover of a magazine.  And although I have long since graduated from the social petri dish of middle school, the world continues to judge me based on my outward appearance.

However, there was one thing in my childhood that was always certain.  My father loves my mother.

I always knew that he loved me but perhaps just as important was the fact that he loved my mom.  Everyone knew it.  As a child, I knew that he loved her by the way he spent time with her, treated her, and spoke to her.  My dad rarely raised his voice or lost his temper but if you disrespected my mom, you knew you were in trouble.  It would happen in slow motion, the petulant words tumbling out of your mouth like rain falling from the sky.  You knew you were in trouble before you finished the bratty, snot-nosed, flippant remark.

My dad frequently told my mom that she was beautiful.  My mother really is quite beautiful but it always seemed that he would tell her when she had been busy caring for her constantly needy, helpless children, when her hair had fallen into her eyes and the day had been long.  There was never any doubt that he meant it though.  It was as if the priceless maternal service she provided gave merit to his words and made them even more sincere.

More important than the band concerts and swim meets that he never missed was the fact that my dad loves my mother in an honest and faithful way that made me expect that from the man in my life.

 When I found him I knew it.  Call me crazy but I knew it right away.  I didn't meet Dave.  I remembered him.

Once before Katelyn was born, Dave bragged that our children would never be forced to wear helmets because helmets are just not cool.  I had been raised to believe that riding a bike without a helmet would immediately result in a beheading and thought that it might be a good idea if everyone wore helmets all the time.  His no helmet rule made me nervous.  I anxiously consulted with my mother who told me to "just wait."

The first time Dave held Katelyn in his arms, I knew he was struck.  He cared for her with a tenderness that only a father deeply in love with his daughter could have.  A few months ago, I set Katelyn out on the grass next to me.  Dave was worried about it and suggested that I pick her up and set her in my lap because "the grass might be prickly on her legs."

I'm not yet positive but I'm wondering if Kate will learn to ride a bike protected by a full suit of armor.

Dave is a thoughtful father.  He is always thinking of her, what will make her happy, what would be best.  I am grateful for the father who taught him to be a dad.

Kate loves Dave.  When he is at work, she toddles around the house saying, "Da da da," and because I am her mother and our souls speak the same language, I know that she is asking for Dave.  When he returns in the evening, he immediately crawls down on the floor to spend precious time with his daughter.

Just like my dad did.