Daddy's Tears

She didn't remember him at all. There were only tiny telling pieces that proved her simultaneous coexistance with him in the world. She knew this through little facts spoken from photographs and grainy stories. The first time he saw her, he had cried. A uniformed Navy man on a crowded deck let tears roll down his scarred nose, twice broken due to sibling rivalry. In the midst of the other men, he held his baby girl in his weather-beaten arms, weeping at the sight of her. She was supposed to be named Nikki, and until the first time he met her, she had always been Nikki. In his letters he wrote to her mother, he always asked how Nikki was doing. But when he looked into her infant, lazy, dark brown eyes, he said simply, "No, she's an Ashley." And that is how her name was solidified.

She had been breathing only four months when he lost his life, collapsing due to heart failure in a twenty five year old body. There were a series of six pictures she had looked at over the course of her life, the only six in which father and daughter were pictured together. There were the photos of the first time he saw her on the shipdeck, a picture of him wiping her face as he fed her, his flesh Indian brown and flushed due to washing the car moments before. Finally, there was the photo of them on a red couch, with him holding her. She kept it in her wallet and in a frame on her dresser, the frame reading, "Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a daddy." At times, she had to remind herself that her father had even existed. It was those times that it began to hurt the most that she knew nothing of a father-daughter relationship.

She grew up in the single parent household, knowing nothing outside her world concerning men. Her uncles and grandpa were the only male figures in her life, with various others stepping in and out due to her mother's unstable relationships. The last one programmed to memory was Randall. He ate shelled sunflower seeds by the handful, loved the Dallas Cowboys, and fished from the banks of the Wabash River. She was his shadow. And then he was gone.

None of her friends in high school had stable households, so the absence of fatherhood was quickly forgotten. He was always a subconscious thought, but very rarely did she recall to remember him. One of the only stories she had heard was a time when he and her uncle had broken a window in the house while their father was away, and their mother came running up the stairs with a shotgun. She always laughed at that story, not because she necessarily connected with it, but simply due to the picture in her head of her sixty five year old grandmother running up the stairs. (Of course, she was much younger then, but it didn't make the situation any less humorous). She also listened to a tape he had made while on the ship. He was soft-spoken with words of endearment to her mother, telling her he couldn't wait to get home. He also recorded their songs on it, with little hearts drawn on the label. It never occured to her how thoughtful he was. He was almost like a character in a book. The trinkets and things left behind reminded her that he had once lived, but if it weren't for those, she would let him fade.

It wasn't until she got to college that she realized how much she ached for her father. One weekend she went home with her best friend, Casey. When Casey's father greeted Casey at the door, arms outstretched, kissing her adult forehead, and asking her how her car was doing, she realized it made her extremely uncomfortable to see it. She hadn't been around much father-daughter affection, and she didn't know how to receive it. She smiled through the awkward feeling, and had to convince herself that this was something that was totally normal, no matter how foreign it was to her in her own life. She then began to open her eyes to all of these relationships at her school. At her University's annual get-together, Family Weekend, she saw the fathers and daughters interact. On the table where the family photos were developed and framed, she saw a picture of a girl and her father, sticking out their tongues and making funny faces at the camera. She wished she had been old enough to make funny faces with her father at the camera that had been taking photos of them. She wished she would have been old enough for her father to take her on what these people call a father/daughter "date". She would have liked that. She would have liked that a lot.

There were reminders everywhere. The morning she woke up from a bachelorette party, the soon-to-be bride's father had been standing outside of the doorway as she walked to the kitchen. He asked if she could go get his daughter. She explained politely that she was taking a shower, but that she would be done shortly. She watched as the man paced back and forth, and from her trips back and forth from the kitchen to the room, he must have asked her two more times if his daughter was ready to speak with him yet. It annoyed her at first, especially since she didn't expect him to be there. It was extremely creepy to wake up to a man in the house. But then, she began to see the reason why this man was so anxious. This was the last morning he was going to have a conversation with his single daughter. She would be her husband's after that day, and those talks wouldn't be as frequent as they had been before. It was clear by his wringing hands and nervous voice how frequent they had been. And that made her sick. She still didn't understand this father-daughter thing. Seeing affection or closeness between father and daughter made her uncomfortable. She felt like that type of closeness shouldn't go on between an older man and a younger woman. She just didn't understand it at all.

At the reception, the floor was cleared after the first dance. She thought it was for all of the guests to dance, but she realized it was for more "father-daughter" stuff. She almost rolled her eyes at the thought. The father and daughter dance. Hadn't their relationship been emphasized enough? The walking down the aisle with the father, the father giving away the daughter to the groom, etc. Why must we all sit here in awkward silence while we watch these two dance to "Butterfly Kisses" and reminisce about the "good old days?" What is the point? To make those that don't have good relationships, or better yet, NO fathers to feel bad about themselves? She tried not to let it bother her. She felt the corners of her eyes twitch against involuntary emotions. Before she could stop it, they rolled down her nose, just like Daddy's. She wiped them away, feeling a distant connection with the biological one who helped create her. Her gaze was empty, into the crowd, searching for the closest sensation to feeling her father physically with her in that moment. The reality that her father would never dance with her on her wedding day was devastating, a thought that had not been recognized until now.

Her eyes continued to pour, and her fiance' reached out and took her hand. He squeezed it, in the way that always assured her that no problem was too complex for him to solve. He wiped a tear away, and put his arm around her. She tried to blend in with the breathless crowd, pretending that the sight of father and daughter pushed only her sentimental buttons, and that these were happy tears. She's sure some people looked on, touched by her compassion. But these were bitter tears. She knew she'd never have that, and that made her want it that much more.

Her fiance' looked into her infant, lazy, dark brown eyes, lifting her chin to his gaze. "When we have our mother-son and father-daughter dance, you can dance with my father." He smiled at her, reassuring and comforting. That sentence made a wave of peace go over her. God was giving her a second chance at a father. By marriage, she was gaining another father, one that she could adopt as her own, and one that could give her the relationship she so desperately wanted. She leaned her head on his shoulder as the song ended.

"I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

Sometimes God has dog eyes.

I have been feeling distant from God for awhile. I think my life has been so busy with other concerns, He has kind of faded in the background. It's not that I'm not conscious of Him, but I don't think I've been conscious of Him as Lord. Plus, any time I pray, I feel my prayers are hitting the ceiling.

My future husband asked me to go out and look at the stars tonight. It was then I realized how far from feeling God I've been lately. I sat, outwardly soundless, emotionless, except for the buckets of tears rolling down my cheeks. I realized how much I missed God.

When I long for God, I long for Him in every way. This includes physically. One of the most bizarre yet serene experiences I've ever had was in a judgement house a few Octobers back. We went through the room in which you supposedly died in a car accident. You approach the throne of judgement. Your name is repeated over the loud speaker, letting you know that you are in the book of life, and that you can enter heaven. Jesus (who is wearing a bad fake wig) comes out in the traditional Jesus garb, walks down the line, and hugs each of the people in the room, welcoming them to heaven. But when he got to me, instead of being freaked out, I clung to him for dear life. I forgot that it was an actor, and I imagined myself actually approaching the physical form of Jesus, and being able to connect with Him past the spiritual. I marvel at those that were actually able to walk with Jesus, and see him sweat, and see him laugh, and see him cry...it all leaves me wishing I had existed and walked in the same steps as Jesus.

But with God, you don't get that physical human connection. That's part of the greatness of Him, that you can still feel close to Him while never experiencing a physical connection with Him. At the same time, that is part of my pursuit, my race toward Him, to possibly touch the hem of His garmet, and feel as close to Him as possible, hoping that one experience will be one step closer to experiencing His physical presence. It's a bittersweet loneliness as well. One of the top things I hope I can experience in heaven is literally going up to Jesus, and getting a close as possible. Like a child following after her father's shadow, I think if human form existed in heaven, I would be the one that would literally be attached to Jesus as He walked around.

I was feeling the presence of God tonight, and longing for that physical connection. Wesley was preaching/discussing (0ne of the things he's great at) and suddenly my dog, Claudia, came up to me. And for no other way to explain this other than it was a supernatural experience, Claudia looked me in the eye, about five inches from my face, and laid her chin on my shoulder. It was the only way a dog could hug. And I felt God saying to me, "I can't be there with you, but I am HERE with you." As bizarre as it sounds, when Claudia looked at me face to face, with that unblinkling stare,with those brown, wise eyes that pierced my soul, I felt like God had specifically directed His creature toward me to offer the only physical comfort He could give me.

He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me was love.

- Song of Songs 2:4