Father-Daughter
A few weeks ago, I was looking through Pintrest.com ,which is nothing new there. I've become addicted to the site. I came across this DIY (do-it-yourself) project for a flower scarf. I clicked the picture and it scent me to a blog, http://watchmedaddy.blogspot.com/.
I read through the directions and decided that I could probably manage to do this scarf and decided to repin. After I repinned the project I started looking through the blog. I came across an introduction that explained why the blog was called Watch me Daddy. Apparently, my fellow blogger lost her father in April and this is her way of continuing to talk to him and show him what she's doing in her life. She has special blog entries called, "Lunch with Dad." I read two of them and it got me to thinking about my own relationship with my father.
Watch me Daddy isn't the first blog of this type that I've read. I've noticed that many of the bloggers have fond memories of their fathers, lunches they had, activities they did together and shared conversations. They always miss those activities and wish they had a few more moments to cherish. When I compare their memories to my memories I can't help but wonder if there was something really wrong with my father-daughter relationship.
These bloggers all seem to have a deeper connection with their father than I ever had with mine. I never had long lunches where we had deep conversations about life, love, politics, or books. The only activity we ever engaged in was watching television and most of those memories are from when I was a child. We were never like that Norman Rockwell painting The Jewelry Shop. When I remember our relationship during my teenage years into my early twenties I always cringe. We had a very bad relationship. We screamed accusations and insults trying to win a victorless fight. And are verbal blows were known to hit below the belt on many occasions.
It wasn't until transferred out to a university six hours away that our relationship got better. Distance and time helped us to see each others' perspective a lot more clearly. He was trying to protect me and I was trying to spread my wings and fly. When I came home, after my first semester, for a visit I decided to make peace with him. We were in his truck out on some errand when I told him that I understood why he had tried to be so strict and argumentative with me about so many things. And I apologized for the things I'd said and done to hurt him. He said he was sorry too. We never talked about it after that and even though our post-war relationship was never the same, we were in a better place.
So, when I think about our long relationship I always wonder why ours was so bad compared to other peoples. Why didn't we have lunch, take walks, talk? And why didn't it occur to me to start such things? Did I think we had more time to ease into that part of our relationship? Or maybe it just wasn't us. When I imagine having lunch with my father sharing my thoughts and feelings about love and life, I can't help but roll my eyes. We may have liked Norman Rockwell's paintings and even wished we were more like the father-daughter subjects, but the truth is we just weren't painted that way.
I read through the directions and decided that I could probably manage to do this scarf and decided to repin. After I repinned the project I started looking through the blog. I came across an introduction that explained why the blog was called Watch me Daddy. Apparently, my fellow blogger lost her father in April and this is her way of continuing to talk to him and show him what she's doing in her life. She has special blog entries called, "Lunch with Dad." I read two of them and it got me to thinking about my own relationship with my father.
Watch me Daddy isn't the first blog of this type that I've read. I've noticed that many of the bloggers have fond memories of their fathers, lunches they had, activities they did together and shared conversations. They always miss those activities and wish they had a few more moments to cherish. When I compare their memories to my memories I can't help but wonder if there was something really wrong with my father-daughter relationship.
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| The Jewelry Shop |
These bloggers all seem to have a deeper connection with their father than I ever had with mine. I never had long lunches where we had deep conversations about life, love, politics, or books. The only activity we ever engaged in was watching television and most of those memories are from when I was a child. We were never like that Norman Rockwell painting The Jewelry Shop. When I remember our relationship during my teenage years into my early twenties I always cringe. We had a very bad relationship. We screamed accusations and insults trying to win a victorless fight. And are verbal blows were known to hit below the belt on many occasions.
It wasn't until transferred out to a university six hours away that our relationship got better. Distance and time helped us to see each others' perspective a lot more clearly. He was trying to protect me and I was trying to spread my wings and fly. When I came home, after my first semester, for a visit I decided to make peace with him. We were in his truck out on some errand when I told him that I understood why he had tried to be so strict and argumentative with me about so many things. And I apologized for the things I'd said and done to hurt him. He said he was sorry too. We never talked about it after that and even though our post-war relationship was never the same, we were in a better place.
So, when I think about our long relationship I always wonder why ours was so bad compared to other peoples. Why didn't we have lunch, take walks, talk? And why didn't it occur to me to start such things? Did I think we had more time to ease into that part of our relationship? Or maybe it just wasn't us. When I imagine having lunch with my father sharing my thoughts and feelings about love and life, I can't help but roll my eyes. We may have liked Norman Rockwell's paintings and even wished we were more like the father-daughter subjects, but the truth is we just weren't painted that way.
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