Dear Dad, I Love You

When I was a baby and a toddler, we danced, with me held close in your arms or standing on your feet, to damn near anything Fleetwood Mac or Buddy Holly produced. Thirty years later I can't imagine a more heartwarming image than you doing the same with my sister's beautiful daughter.

You let me learn how to shift the gears on the family's blue four-door Ford Escort, even on La Cresta with all its new stop signs. "Faith" by George Michael was on the tape deck and I thought the intro organ music was coming from the church down the street.

At Halloween, you were such a convincingly scary Igor that either Jeff Quilling or Michelle Dunn kicked you in the balls and you didn't break character. I mean, you already had a limp.

In the '80s, you bought the Smurf Suit, a Crayola-blue, two-piece rain coat and pants get-up, and kept it in the car trunk, ready to shamelessly wear in inclement weather on the sidelines of my soccer games. Until I was 25.

You drove my boyfriend and me to the seventh grade dance while "I Heard it through the Grapevine" played on the radio. Mike and I held hands in the back seat.

I got a little big for my britches and drove my friend's brand new Jeep all by myself... when I was 14... and I got pulled over. I think you laughed out loud, then made me pay for the ticket by myself. Which I chose to do with coins presented in a jar to the Ozaukee County judge.

In 1995 you left Owen and me home alone during Christmas vacation. On day 1, he and I took the emergency cash from the envelope in the kitchen cabinet and rented skis for the week and bought hill passes for everything within reasonable driving distance. You hollered, but God that was a great week.

For years and years, you kept telling me a dog is just a pet, not a member of the family. And then one morning when I was 15 I woke up to you making S-shaped pancakes... for Sydney. While cooing at him. What a good dog. What a good dad.

When it came time to spread Syd's ashes, you helped me do so with my loved ones close by in a quiet, dignified way that afforded me an opportunity to put that perfect relationship to rest.

Just before leaving for college, I caught a nasty bug that turned into a weeks-long hospitalization and you fought The Man with me to help me stay in school, where I became a tutor and graduated with honors.

You flew to Annapolis for a visit and helped me raise money, in a bar, for my classroom's hermit crabs. Well, to buy a hamster wheel for one of them. I recall you climbed on a stool. We netted about $50.

When I said Grandma looked like you in drag, Katie got offended, but you laughed. Grandma was undoubtedly a beautiful woman... with a sense of humor.

You were such a good dad to my friends that you got your own invitation to my best friend's wedding. I can't imagine a more handsome date.

You flew across the country, wore your sharpest suit to court, and double-dog dared that jackass to show up and confront me. DOUBLE-DOG DARED. And of course he didn't. Jackass.

In my second year of teaching, I got a little post-standardized-testing lazy and assigned my students a project of making your birthday cards. In return, my students received fancy chocolates and a hand-made photo album.

I was 14 when I ran away from one home. When the guardian ad litem asked me, and I quote, "Whose heart do you want to break, your mom's or your dad's?", I said I just wanted to stay home, and that meant being with you. I heard you cried that day.



I love you
very very very
very very very
very very very
much