It's My Dad's Birthday

My father and I are more alike than I’d like to admit. In some ways, I think we are more alike than I even know.  Everyone else can see it though. Sometimes, I wish I was more like him.  Father and daughter, often a complicated, taut relationship. Some are more fortunate than others, finding a companion in their father. Others are not so lucky, growing up with an absence in their life, a paternal-sized hole in the family photo. My father and I, we fall on neither side of the spectrum. Most of the time, I believe that there is no relationship like the one my father and I have. I can not tell if that is a good or a bad thing.

I have my father’s feet and his anger. We are both quick to emotions, which doesn’t bode well for anyone in our vicinity when the conversation becomes tense. I share his love for soccer and anything sweet. I remember as a child, I thought my father was mean but so incredibly smart. I know now that he wasn’t mean, but rather the iron fist that he ruled with over our education was misconstrued as cruel. As a child, nothing was more barbaric than having to fill out math worksheets when all I wanted to do was ride my bike around the cul-de-sac. I remember thinking that he didn’t understand what it was like for me, for a little girl. He could never know because he was my father. I know now that things are not always as black and white as they seem. 

My father and I have the same tendencies. We raise our voices, not to be heard, but to be understood, to be seen. We push ourselves hard, almost to our breaking point just to prove that we can. We laugh at the same stupid jokes, we both have an innate compulsion to protect my mother, his wife, from all the bad in the world. My father and I are very different. I am anxious when I am not early, and he arrives on time with leisure. I cry at everything, I’ve only seen him cry once. 

In another lifetime, I meet my father when he is just a boy. We play soccer together and race each other across the field. He tells me of his childhood in a country he yearns to escape. He will laugh out loud, a full, hearty sound from the depths of his belly, and I refuse to believe this soul will become the calloused man who is my father, hardened by the adversity of immigrating to a world that doesn’t even speak the same language as him. In another lifetime, I will give him my shoulder to cry on, something I have only seen him do once in my twenty-three years of living. I will create a safe space for him, a place where he can be uniquely himself, and I will grow to understand him without us having to translate what each other says. 

A lot of the time, there is unbridled rage when we do not see eye to eye on things, like what to have for dinner or who should be the next president. There are many things that we will never come to an agreement on, like what sports team to watch or what political party we side with. Often I forget that it’s my father’s first time on this Earth too. Often I forget the conditions he survived as a child, the sacrifices he made and the long hours he toiled to provide the fruitful life I have today. So it is not easy to accept these differences, but it has become easier to give each other the grace we need, to be more patient with each other. It has taken me twenty-three years to dampen my short fuse, and it may take us twenty-three more years to fully come to understand each other. I do not mind, though. All the years I have left with my father I will never take for granted. 

Being a father can be lonely, I sometimes think. Especially in a family of women, communication can be fraught, opinions can be drowned. Sometimes I wonder if he will one day explode with all the emotions he does not show outright. But then I also believe there is no better place to let out all frustrations and tears than here, in a family of women who understand how it feels to be misunderstood. Some days, I wish he would let it all out because maybe then we can finally see eye to eye. 

There is no longer an angry man in our house. It is now filled with a quiet love, a steadfast silence that allows us to navigate conflict more easily. Not perfectly, but easier. What a strange thing it is. When I am at my angriest, I am my father’s daughter. But all too well, when I am at my best, I am still my father’s daughter.