I didn't know my dad was my rock. I didn't know what he would move heaven and earth to be near me. I dind't know because he never had to show me, and what was assumed was lost on me.
All my life I had this overwhelming guilt to love my dad more than my mom. I knew that if I did then no one would love her, she would be no body's number one. As a young girl I had that fear, I watched her suffer from only having her daughter's love to survive on, because not her son nor anyone else in her life was giving anything. So I trusted her words about my dad, about their parenting, about everything.
My dad has always been there for me. Every Sunday. Then every Saturday. Then just a phone call. He has been there. "You have given me the best New Years gift, Christmas" He said that to me because we soke for less than a hour in Penn Station, and we btoh felt that it was the best conversation we ever had. It's the most substnaital conversation we ever had. And although it was mainly centered on my mom and her mental health issues. I was able to see my father for Ernie Waters.
I am the daughter of a phneomenal man. He works, but not hard, because he is too busy soaking up and enjpyng life. What good is a life where you're working all the time but don't have the time to enjoy it? He understood that money isn't everything. it's needed, and the obviously the more the better, but he wasn't ging to sacrifice his life for it. As long as we were good, then not much more was needed.
As 2018 comes to a close, I am now infintely more inspried and grounded because I am just now grasping the true depth of my father's love.