A Girl Without a Father

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 Suggested listening: Loudon Wainwright's "Daughter"

 I’ve been a girl without a father almost as long as I’ve been a girl with one.

My dad died when I was 17, halfway through my senior year of high school, just a couple of months after he turned 57.

I have missed so many things.

I missed him watching me graduate high school, moving me - a first-generation college student -into UNC (the school he kept nudging me toward), celebrating my journalism degree, walking me down the aisle, reading my articles in his favorite beach newspaper, holding his third granddaughter, talking me through my divorce, and hearing about my new life.

I have forgotten so many things.

I have forgotten the sound of his voice, the way he walked, the everyday mix of things that made him Big Jim.

All of those things seem so, so far away from me now.

Except.

Except I took my daughter to the library one day, a pretty common field trip for us, and when I looked across at her - framed by the wooden castle we played with, back-dropped by books - I felt it.

I felt the cool of my favorite childhood library, prowling the aisles with my dad, small arms full of books, determined to break my own personal record for most-books-read-by-a-kid-in-a-
week.

I felt the sturdy weight of hauling another USPS mail bin full of books out of the library with my dad, smiling at our bargain deals and giggling at what Mom would say to another paperback stack.

I felt my dad so close to me that day.

And then.

I took my big brother and his wife and my daughter to a baseball game, our first game together. And when I looked down the row at them - faces full of sunlight, hands juggling popcorn and hotdogs - I felt it.

I felt the perpetually rocky infield under my feet, aware of my dad’s nonchalant lean on the right field fence as I prepped for the next grounder at softball practice.

I felt the stale summer air in our old LeBaron, as my dad and I debated whether my batting stance needed to be adjusted while he maneuvered the convertible top down for the drive home.

I felt my dad so close to me that day.

And when I look around at my life now, I feel it.

I feel the overwhelming power of those memories, reminding me that the little things I am able to still hold onto about my dad aren’t so little after all.

I feel like a girl who will, in fact, always have a dad.

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