Daddy’s Little Girl

               My father passed away on Good Friday 2023 and being Easter there is a resurrection of sorts and we will get to that by the end of this story. His death brought forth a plethora of emotions. A little back story. My father divorced my mother when I was 16 and in a sense it felt like he had also divorced my sister and myself.  There was no child support awarded—my mother didn’t care—all she wanted was an out of a tumultuous  marriage. By the time I was 17 he was remarried to a woman only 7 years older than me and their son was born—I’ll leave you to do the math.

               I have often wondered why people would say, “you should not speak ill of the dead”. I mean seriously if someone was a crappy husband and father why should you pretend that they weren’t? I now understand why it is said. It is not about them, it is about you.  While you may be justified in your truth, your anger all it does is continue to burn a hole in your soul.  You need to take all the anger, all the hurt, all the woulda, shoulda, could haves and bury them with the dead. That is the only way to let of it all and to be free. No relationship no matter how strained, hurtful or regretful has some positive, some love there or it wouldn’t hurt so much. So I will bury it all.

               You see there is a father I can hold onto. The daddy that I had when I was five years old. The daddy whose arms I would jump into when he got home from work. The daddy who would surprise me with popcorn balls in the shape of a a sitting doggie, the chocolate cigarettes or what ever treat it was he would pick up on the New York subway on his way home from work. The dad that carried me to the hospital a few blocks away when I fell and hit my head at the age of 7 because my parents did not have a car. The dad that held me as the doctors took a needle and thread and put stitches into my head. Pretty famous in school for a couple weeks looking like Frankenstein. The dad that would take permanent markers and draw superhero’s on my and my sisters arms. I did say permanent markers right? Had to wear long shirts to school when he did that. A precursor to my future as a face painter.

               When I was 19 my father moved to another city and by the time I was 40 he had moved to another state. Other than an occacional yearly trip or that yearly Christmas day call that I would make for the past 20 years my father has been mostly out of my life and barely there from the age of 19.

               My father moved back into the area a few months ago when he inherited my uncle’s house. And that move  brought forth many emotions. For at least a year I have been trying to reconcile who I am and the connection to my father.  You see the talents and abilities that I love best about myself all come from him. I took art classes in high school and at the age of 19 I started face painting. The ability to draw comes from my dad. So while he may not have been financially responsible for us post divorce I he did give me a gene that has enabled me to support myself for the past 41 years. My dad was also a writer, sadly his work was never published but the desire for the written word comes from him. I have self-published, written and produced a play and a short film, so in that respect I got luckier than he did. I remember my dad playing guitar when I was a child and rolling my eyes when he would make up songs—little did I know what a talent that was—no I don’t play but I have taken lessons and the desire to create music is there, again my dad. He spoke English, Spanish and French. I speak, English, Spanish, Italian and some French—my proclivity for languages comes from him as well.  Granted, physically I am a mini-me of my mom and I have many of her attributes as well—but the core of so much of who I am is my dad. I learned never to walk away a from a fight from him and to be fearless.

               So, how can I hate this man so much when so much of who I am is him? How can I accept who I am if on some level I can not accept him? This has been my struggle for the past year and I had hoped that somehow I would figure it all out before he died but life does not always work out that way, maybe if this was a Hallmark movie it would have happened that way. To back track a little bit. My father had fallen and hit his head and had to get stitches he was kept in the hospital for observation. My sister and I had already made plans to see him when he got released from the hospital but before that happened we got a call that his heart stopped and they weren’t sure if he would make it through the weekend. We were going to the hospital Friday morning when the call came that he has passed away. And that roller coaster ride of emotions really took off.  At first I was numb, no feelings no emotions but then it hit me. The sadness, the grief, crying for the little who will never get her daddy back….

               and therein lies the resurrection. You see, the only way to get my dad back is to hold onto those little girl memories when I was Daddy’s girl. It is finally accepting that who I am when I write or paint a little child’s face are the parts of my dad to accept and embrace. And all the hurt’s that have transpired will get buried once and for all. I will never be hurt again or disappointed by my father who after all was just a human with his own stories of hurt and tribulations. I will be free of all of that and I continue to just be that little girl who waited with anticipation for her daddy to come home from work and jump into his arms.

               This picture of me and my dad has always been my favorite and it embodies for me all the words I have written. It is the image of my dad that I want to hold in my heart and memories