Hey, Daddy...

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Today, in the early hours of the day in 1978, my father died, in my mother's arms. He was scared, and blinded by the toxic build-up resulting from renal failure. He asked her if she thought he was faking it.

I got the call that morning at 6:30 a.m. I lived in a house with a man, my husband of a few short months. He was a friend, a scuba diving buddy I had married after George broke up with me. After my parents had requested that I marry him, now, so that Daddy could be content in his illness, knowing that I had "someone to take care of" me. He said his dream was to walk his last daughter down the aisle. The other daughters been handed over to a man by age 18, none yet out of high school. I was a hold-out, an enigma, an old maid and a failure to my parents.

Before I even told the man I had married (a few short weeks earlier), even before I awakened him with my painful need, I placed a call to the man I am married to now. I longed to hear him say it would be okay, that he would make it okay. But, at that early hour on a Saturday morning, he was not home; maybe, his roommate chuckled, he had gone home with someone he met in a bar. I left a message with his roommate, a message never returned.

I got through the following days, the shock, the grief, the disbelief that only a 21 year old can feel at the sudden death of her foundation, her daddy. My then-spouse was supportive and kind, having lost his own father at age 16. But, it was then that I realized that I only belonged to myself, that my father's desire for me to have 'someone to take care of' me didn't take into consideration my own ability, education, choice, and resourcefulness.

I was living my father's desire for my life, not mine. A few weeks later, I filed for divorce. I had given my father what he wanted and needed at the end of his life, and now it was time to move on, to give me what I wanted and needed in a life not yet formed or determined.

Five years later, I married the man I called that morning. That was twenty seven years ago.

Daddy, I miss you. I have someone now, someone more like you than I wish to acknowlege, who I take care of as much as he takes care of me. We would have gotten there, anyway, I'm sure. I am sorry I couldn't tell you 'no' when you told me to marry my buddy, the guy I left behind. I hurt him, and I hurt me.

And, you died anyway.