What's a Girl to Do?

I don’t think I understood the assignment. I only wish I could remember the story behind the picture, but I’m guessing my expression is somehow related to the flowery headband. Today’s expression captured in pictures or forced frills will be the same. What’s a girl to do on Father’s Day when she no longer has a living dad?

One clear snapshot has impressed itself on my mind today, one that now only exists in my mind. I wonder if Dad carried the memory, too—he and I were the only ones in the foreground of this image, a moment that only belonged to us. I don’t know how old I was—older than three because we lived on Gamma Street. Not so old as five. I suspect events leading up to this moment had something to do with sibling jealousy over my brother’s arrival and the resulting demands on my mother’s time, but that is unclear.

I was going through a mommy phase. I wanted Mommy to tuck me in at night. I wanted Mommy to carry me around. I wanted Mommy, just Mommy. I wanted nothing to do with the strange human being she let into the house for dinner each night and out again in the morning, the person I knew as Dad. I can only hope now that he understood the fickle nature of young children still figuring out their place in the family, along with everyone else’s, and forgave me for my shunning-Daddy phase. I think he did. We never spoke of it.

The phase ended forever in a moment at our front door one Sunday morning when Dad simply scooped me up onto his arm and looked me in the eye just before he opened the door to carry me out to the car to go to church. We shared a smile, and in that split-second, I thought, “Well, maybe this guy isn’t so bad.” I suspect God’s Spirit planted that thought, perhaps in answer to someone’s prayers. The change in my opinion of my dad happened just that fast.

From that day on, I was Daddy’s girl. Even if I failed to smile for the Father’s Day photo. And even as I miss him today.

What’s a girl to do on Father’s Day when she no longer has a living dad? This girl will remember hers with gratitude. For his life. To the One who chose him to raise me. I’ll savor memories sweet, now bittersweet, and sometimes desperate to be lived again. I’ll look forward to seeing Dad again someday as he leads me to Jesus in a whole new, literal, and eternal kind of way. As we worship our shared heavenly Father together.

Happy first Father’s Day in Heaven, Dad. I love and miss you.