Today is National Daughter’s Day. To be honest, every day is Daughter’s Day to me. They are the reason I look forward to each day, getting through the many health issues that I face. Though giving up has never been an option, it is amazing that I have had all these years to spend with them, and now look forward to many more years as they head into adulthood. To my daughters, I would be lost without you.
I love you,
Dad
The dentist, a meeting with the boss, even going through my cancer treatments, I have never tried to prevent something so much, rather accept, what I am facing this year. My daughters are growing up, um… grown up, one now eighteen, the other in her late teens. As I go through the department store with either, and we pass the early childhood wardrobes and footwear, I am reminded of a time, seemingly long ago. I want to go back. I cannot. But that does not mean that I cannot dig my heels in as deep as I can, holding on to the very last second, that I have to let go.
Of course, time deals with my resistance. As I said, I have one daughter now eighteen, which means no longer covered by the custody order between her mother and I, she now decides on the time that we get to spend together. Not that she does not want to, but, she does have other things in her life to deal with, whether it be a school activity, hanging with friends, a date, or even work.
The “W” word, work, came up some time ago, actually a couple of years ago. Though I had been resistant to the idea, in spite of the fact that I myself worked as young as the age of fourteen, my only hesitation was the impact that working would have on their school work. As a student, I was a slacker. I was good at just taking tests, not applying myself with homework and studying, so, working did not impact my grades. While my grades were good, needless to say, had I applied myself better to my schoolwork, by not working, sure, my grades would have been better.
As a parent, I have a different outlook. The one request I made of my older daughter, that any hours that she worked, would not interfere not just with her schoolwork, but any activities related to school, especially when it came to the potential of earning any kind of college scholarships.
Earlier this year, she did enter the work force. It is not interfering with school, nor family time.
Now, my younger daughter wanted to get into the act. And again, I found myself in the position of saying, “it must not impact your school work.” Complicating things for her, she is still under the custody agreement, meaning that she is visiting me during the Summers yet, the best time for a teenager to earn some scratch.
Controversy aside from the so-called “worker shortage,” and being somewhat difficult that she would be considered a “seasonal” worker, I began to look at opportunities for her while she would visit with me. I did explain to her, that I would not allow her into the food industry as of right now, for two reasons, low wages and hours that would likely take advantage of her. I know this, I worked in the food industry a long time ago and have friends working in it now. It has not changed. I attempted retail for her, but they all wanted her of adult age. Then it hit me.
We have a seasonal water park, and they were looking for help. Perfect! I will skip the whole process of getting hired, but she was in fact hired, and is looking forward to her first paycheck. But long before that first dollar comes to her, I noticed something.
One of my first jobs as a teenager was also as an employee of an amusement park.
I actually worked there twice, once operating games, and in this photo, after graduating, operating rides. But it gave me a great experience. And I recently found out, after asking how my daughter’s first day went, that job also gave me a new perspective about employment, just as it did for her.
Sure, she is excited about earning money to save for college and other things. But she is also learning, just as I did, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to a business. We only see the board of menu items, order our food, pay for it, and eat it. We try on clothes in the fitting room, and leave the articles of clothing in a heap for some poor schlub to hang the clothing back up if we do not purchase it. And this one really bugs me, the poor person having to gather shopping carts located all over a parking lot just because someone is too lazy to return them or at least place them in a holding area for shopping carts (Publix has them located all over the parking lot).
My daughter had experienced this park before, but as a guest. She was now getting to see what happens behind the ticket window, what employees have to deal with, not just let someone through a gate or put on a ride. She has gotten to see patrons with legitimate issues to deal with, and some that were just being a pain in the ass. She watched small children have meltdowns at the prospect of having to go home. And my personal favorite, having experienced it plenty as a ride operator, dealing with a guest who “lost his lunch.”
Yes, we go to an amusement park, we have a great time, bitch about the things that did not please us, and hopefully we had a great time. To the worker, sure the paycheck is nice, but the wall has been torn down. As an employee, we hope that we have never acted the way that our customers treated us.
It is a short stint for her, as it being seasonal and the kids go back to school soon, but it was a great opportunity and experience for her. As an adult, a happy environment is not always likely as the pressures of life and habits of adulthood become an added complication of the work environment, making it feel more like “work” or working to enjoy work.
Admittedly, it has been fun sharing stories of each of our experiences working at an amusement park, even if they were decades apart.
For only a brief period of time, while waiting to adopt a second time, my sole attention only needed to be focused or concentrated on one child. Even as I waited for that adoption process to conclude, it never took away the time and memories I had with my daughter.
After the arrival of my second daughter, it has always been the three of us. Sure, there may have been a function at school, or a performance somewhere. But the three of us were never apart. I did not look at it either, that I was “splitting” up my attention between my daughters either. I had plenty to give to both, and equally.
As my now teenagers will tell anyone, I took tons of photos. Photo developers would remark after a weekend of having to develop 300 or more pictures (this was before I finally got tech savvy using a cell phone, which did not mean less photos taken, just less printed).
In April of 2008, I faced the most challenging time of my life emotionally. I was facing life or death emergency open heart surgery, needed as a result of late developing side effects from treatment from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma nearly twenty years earlier. From the dates of their adoptions, we had never been apart. After the first night in the hospital, the absence of the physical presence of my daughters was as critical as the surgery that I was facing. Unable to give them one last hug before the surgery, one last look into each of their eyes to assure them that I would be fine, or for me to give myself one final remember of why I needed to get through this surgery, the realization, when, if, I made it through the surgery, there would still be a number of days before I would get to see them.
I had an idea of what to expect, which was nowhere near the reality of what anyone would be looking at when they came to visit me. I had at least three draining tubes coming from me, a mask over my mouth and nose with a tube going down my throat hooked up to a machine to help me breath, and countless lines for medicines and wires for monitoring coming out of my body. There was no way that I wanted my young daughters to see me in this condition.
To quote “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” was an understatement. Once the majority of hardware and gadgetry had been removed, about four days later, I was finally able to see my daughters while I was in the hospital. I never wanted to be separated from them again.
Though more health issues would begin to develop, I did what I could to get through them, allowing me to share so many more great memories with my daughters. And still, it was the three of us, never apart again.
I filed for divorce back in 2013, and of course one of the unfortunate consequences of divorce with children, is that they would end up spending time with both parents, while separate from the other parent. And while the situation was not ideal, nor did it always function they way that it was supposed to, my experience as an adult child of a divorce, I knew what I did not want to happen and would do all that I could to prevent that.
If I could not be with them every day, I would at least see or talk to them every day (or at least attempt to). Technology today, so much better than in the 1970’s, I had Facetime, Skype, and other video options, that I could actually see my daughters when they could not be with me.
But when times came that we were able to get together, it was like we had never been apart.
And so, several more years would pass, tons more photos taken, and a lot more memories have been created. But we still were able to do it, a Dad and his daughters.
I have wished as hard as I could, and even begged each daughter, not to grow up, stay a child forever. If there is one greatest joy in my life, it has been, that of being a Dad. And while that title will last as long as they are able to utter that word, “Dad,” I knew that at some point, a transition would come, away from all the fun of childhood, the reliance on one of their role models. Worst, I would fear that them getting old, would somehow mean distance would step in, taking time away. This is the heartache of parenting often referred to as “empty nest syndrome.”
My parents went through it. Most of my friends have gone through it (I just started parenting later). It is inevitable. It is something that I must face. But I have a slight advantage that others may not have had, an “empty nest lite” if you will. Yes, custody periods have already prepared me for when this time would come, but I actually have another year to finally prepare for the time, when my older daughter takes that next step in her life.
She is approaching her senior year in high school, adult age.
That means that she has reached an age, no longer covered by a custody agreement, able to make her own decisions. And that means, she has also begun to lead her own life, make her own plans. This past Father’s Day, I knew this day would come, and it would have to be something that I would accept.
I know that my daughter is not going to disappear from my life. It does not work that way. But just as a child will go off to college, or perhaps the military, or even simply travel abroad or move away from home, that Father-Daughter relationship will always stand, and actually take on a new meaning.
I have taken a lot of photos over the years of my daughters. It is impossible to list a count of how many. And while there are photos individually with me, the majority of them, are the three of us together. Again, the only time it was just my older daughter and I for the most part, was as we waited to adopt her sister.
As I prepare for the annual summer custody, this will be the first time, not only will it be just my younger daughter spending time with me, but this will also be the first time that the sisters will actually be apart from each other, other than the occasional sleepover. And just as that first year with my older daughter, now it will just be me with my younger daughter, comparable to a “bookend” type finish to their childhood. I know how much that communication will be between the two of them, because I have been there, so I will do all I can to keep them in constant communication, just as I did as father to daughters.
But my older daughter has plans now, as an adult. It appears to be a full schedule as she prepares for her next step. And just like the song “Cats In The Cradle” from Harry Chapin, I am hoping for a little different of a result that she finds some time to make a visit to her sister and I. The next year, it is likely she will make the leap to continue her education, and that will be her official leap from “the nest.”
I am proud and happy for her at this moment in her life. Still, I want to refuse to accept the time has come that my little girl has grown up.
Paul's Heart 