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When a daddy’s girl loses her dad
From the moment I was born and handed off to my father, the bond was there and everyone could just see it
by The Tab
March 24th, 1995. 3:25PM. Steubenville, OH.
My birthday, and the minute my dad first held me. I was a C-section baby, so my dad was the first besides nurses to hold me, even before my mom. Everyone has told me he had never been happier in his life until that minute. The first minutes of life are the most important and I truly believe this is why my dad and I had such a great bond.
My dad and I, 1995Fast forward to December 4th, 2006.
My dad had gotten sick, completely out of nowhere. He had been in the hospital for two weeks or so, and on this particular day, my brother who was eight at the time, and myself (I was 11) stayed home from school because we had been dealing with a lot and staying with family since my mom had moved into my dad’s hospital room. But on this day, my entire world flipped upside down. There is nothing to prepare you for something like this, no matter how old you are.
The whole car ride home with my uncle, I knew something was wrong. My brother had fallen asleep so it was just my uncle and I talking. Walking into my house and seeing my mom in my dad’s Minnesota Vikings pajama pants I would have normally thought nothing of it. But there were five cars in my driveway and as soon as my brother and I got inside, they went to our kitchen. I walked in and saw my mom, eyes red, face tear-stained and her voice could hardly get the words out.
“Kids, your dad.. he’s gone. He went to heaven today.. I told him it was OK.”
“NO…NO…”
The next few hours and even days were an absolute blur. I remember running up my stairs and one of my aunts or uncles grabbing me and holding me and bringing me to my mom. My brother was crying so hard, we all were. But I especially remember his cries and trying to hug him and somehow tell him we would be OK.
DisneyWorld with my dad and brother, 2001. Photography by my momIt’ll be 10 years in December and sometimes I still wake up and try to convince myself it didn’t happen. But it did, and it changed my life forever.
My dad was my biggest fan and my toughest critic, but in the best way possible. Being the oldest had its perks because I knew there would be times where he could not tell me “no.” He was my basketball coach, my ride to practice, my best friend. He always told everyone he knew, “life’s too short,” and that’s something I’ve lived by. It’s even tattooed on me so it’s always with me.
The last two years I had with my dad were full of sports and riding 20 minutes each way to practice and all of the fast food stops in between. There was even one time when my dad had to pick me up from dance class and was a little annoyed that I was sitting in a corner with ice on my hand. We drove home and I just told him I hurt it. We got home pretty late because dance was never on time, and after I had showered and gone to bed my mom called me into their room. She asked to see my finger, which was clearly broken and then told my dad we should’ve gone to the hospital and all of that fun stuff. But it was 11:30pm at this point and I had to go to school the next day – being a fifth grader it was probably some cool day in science class. So, my dad popped my finger back into place. Yes, I’m not lying, he popped my dislocated finger back into place, taped and ace wrapped it up, and I went to bed with some ice and Tylenol.
The stories I have with my dad are endless, but there is still something that happens everyday that I wish I could just even call him and tell him about. Getting into THE Ohio State University was always something I knew he wanted for me, so not going here my freshman year I constantly felt like I was letting him down. I know I wasn’t, but internally I just felt that way until I decided to transfer.
My dad was also all about making me work my ass off for anything I wanted. So picture an 11-year-old wanting a cell phone because “all of my friends are getting them.” So he made me a deal. “You land your full twist, and we’ll get you a cell phone Zoe.” Done. I spent extra time at the cheer gym and begged him to drive me to every tumbling class I could attend. Now my dad wasn’t all “into” cheerleading just yet, that was more of a thing between my mom and I. I finally landed it at a competition… just weeks after he had passed away.
Seeing friends of mine bash their dads or say things like “my dad is so annoying!” makes me so angry I’ve had to leave places just so I won’t say something to ruin a friendship. Any time I hear someone saying anything bad about their dad just makes me want to tell them “at least yours is still here.”
Unless you’ve gone through it, you have no idea how it is. That first Christmas was the hardest. My mom bought me a cell phone and we went to do the typical call your voicemail to set it up deal. So we called my voicemail, and to my mom’s, two aunts and brother’s amazement, we heard my dad’s voicemail message. To this day, there is no explanation for it. I don’t have my dad’s old phone number. Call it divine intervention or whatever you believe, but it was my dad telling my brother and I goodbye. Our mom wouldn’t let us see him after a while because he was on a lot of machines and she didn’t want us to remember him like that.
My dad was the guy everyone could go to. He was the booster club president of my Catholic elementary school and worked all of our pizza Fridays we had at lunch. He didn’t need to be there, but he wanted to see all of the students and teachers and staff and be as involved as possible. He helped coach our basketball league as well as my brother’s little league t-ball and baseball teams. If someone needed something, they could always count on my dad.
The last vacation with my dadI like to think that when I act a certain way and my mom says, “You are so your father’s daughter!” that even though she sounds annoyed, she loves it. I have my dad’s humor and temper as well as his heart. I hate letting people down and always want to do anything I can to help people. Maybe that’s from both of my parents because my mom was a nurse.
Some days I find myself seeing people getting engaged and how I’ll never have that moment of having my dad walk me down the aisle in my own wedding. I go to weddings and when the father-daughter song comes on, I can’t help but tear up because my dad and I only got that dance once or twice when I was a flower girl in a few weddings. When that day comes for me, it will be my stepdad taking that role like he has been trying to do for eight years now. I love my stepdad – he used to be my dad’s best friend – and am so lucky I have him in my life.
One of the only father-daughter dances with my dadThere are days where I’m really happy and confident with how my life is going, and then I have days where I just really feel the need to talk to him face to face, and I can’t. And it is terrible. Every December 4th I have to will myself out of bed and every year I try my best to keep it together when I’m around people. This year I did pretty good, up until a friend of mine saw me and knew it was a rough day for me. They simply asked, in a concerned tone, “Are you really doing OK?” because they had asked me before and I said I was fine. I broke down. I had to leave.
And that’s how it is sometimes, I’ve come to learn I will not always be OK and I will be more than OK at times.