Beech Tree News Network

My husband, Garey, is not one of those guys who overlooks my weaknesses and accepts me just the way I am.  I know this because he tells me so.  Garey is a fusser.  If I do something he doesn’t like, I’m going to hear about it.  Granted, after thirty-eight years, it’s water on a duck’s back.
    Our daughters, however, do not have ducks’ backs.  They are thirty-two and twenty-eight, and their father’s disapproval still really gets to them.  Garey has the same effect on our granddaughter.  She can handle a spanking from her mom, but if Garey, her Papa, gives her a disapproving look, she’ll throw herself on the bed and cry like it’s the end of her world.  It’s like he’s endowed with a super power that I missed out on.
    All three of the girls, Natalie, Nikki and Sabria, will go toe to toe with me on almost anything, but if they have a grievance with their dad (or in Sabria’s case, her grandpa), I am asked to intercede.  And it’s not like Garey is a yeller or screamer, he’s not at all.  Garey and I were both raised by men who often raised their voices, and in Garey’s case, his hand, to their children, and we decided not to raise our kids that way.
    Garey goes out of his way to try to reason with the girls.  Recently, I heard him explaining to Sabria why she couldn’t have another piece of gum.  “We don’t mind you chewing a piece at a time, but you can’t have a whole sack-full,” he said, “It’ll rot your teeth then you’ll look like this.”  With that exhortation, he moved his lips down over his teeth, and started doing the hundred-year-old man impression that I’ve clearly told him will lead to my divorcing him if he actually looks like that when he’s one hundred. Our granddaughter was fascinated by the transformation.  I’m not sure how much her little brain associated too much gum with the sight of her grandpa with no teeth—probably more than was psychologically beneficial for a three-year-old—but she stopped asking for gum and shouted for her Papa to do the toothless-man impression again, so I reminded myself to count my blessings.
When Nikki was a little girl, Garey created “The Crab,” an imaginary crustacean he concocted by curling the fingers of his right hand into a claw-like creature.  They spent many an evening playing in the living room floor, Garey chasing Nikki with “The Crab,” Nikki running, screaming and laughing.  Garey modified the Crab’s job description a bit with Sabria.  The Crab now gobbles up frowns.  If Sabria is being ornery, the Crab is quickly on the scene looking for a frown.  Of course, the crab always makes her smile, so he goes back into his shell, which has a home in Garey’s pocket.
    Even though Garey and I have had our differences through the years, I’ve always recognized that he tries to be reasonable and to truly understand my side of things. Because he’s their dad, the girls don’t always see him that way.  I didn’t always see my own dad that way either.
 This was my first Christmas without my dad (he passed away in September).  As I was wrapping some presents from Garey to the girls, I thought about how lucky they are to have a father who goes out of his way to make sure each girl gets a present specifically from him each Christmas.  I thought, “I wish I had something my dad got just for me,” then I remembered the card he gave me when I graduated from WKU in 1995.  I was forty years old.  He and my stepmom and my brothers and sisters came to the graduation.  Dad gave me the card after the ceremony.  I noticed it was his handwriting on the front of the envelope.  He signed it, “I thought this card pretty well said it all, Love Dad and Mom.”  I framed it.  It hangs on my bedroom wall.  I miss who my dad was. 
During Christmas dinner this year, I looked at my daughters and thought, “You see who your dad is not, because you’ve always had who he is, and you don’t miss or long for what is; but when he is no longer here, you will recognize who he was and what you had, and you will miss who he was.” 
It is truly a gift to have a person who touches your life in such a way that they leave a space when they are no longer there.