Daddy.

When I was four, my dad was my world.
He was the smartest creature on the planet. He knew everything. He could hit a baseball all the way from the patio to the woods. He could speak German. He knew all the words to the Star Spangled Banner. He owned more books than I could count. He loved my mother. He was never cross, or angry. He sang songs that made me laugh, and told jokes I could only pretend to understand.
We played games, in my big back yard. Games we invented all by ourselves. My favorite was “Rock Detectives”, which consisted of the two of us crouched to our hands and knees in the middle of our gravel driveway, searching to find the biggest, prettiest rocks in the world. He would find a stone, hold up, and I'd inspect it. Only the smoothest, most pristine ones made the final cut.
And my daddy never once complained about the cuts the rocks made in the palms of his hands, or the scrapes this game wreaked upon his knees. He just smiled, and messed up my hair. And it was beautiful, but I didn't know it yet. I was young and blind to the world around me. I didn't understand why he never complained, or wonder why his patience never ran low. Because that's just what daddy's do, I'm told. They love their little girls, and would do anything for them.
We played a game called Rescue Heroes. Daddy would lie on the basement floor, place a chair on top of him, shout “Rescue Heroes! Help!” and I would run onto the scene, pink blanket cape trailing behind me. I'd use the whole of my power to remove the chair from his chest, releasing him of what was then an endless turmoil. And he'd ask how he could ever repay me, and I'd salute him, one hand on my hip, and say “That's JUST what we DO!”
And off I'd fly.
There were other battles I needed to fight. Being a Rescue Hero was no easy job.
During the winter Olympics of 2002, inspired by the impossibly tall ski slopes I'd been marveling at through the kitchen television, daddy helped me place a small card table and some stools at the foot of our staircase. We pretended the stairs were slopes, covered in ice and snow, avalanches just waiting to fall. I called it “Rocky Mountain Ice Cafe”, and we shared pop-sicles and crackers with squirt cheese at the card table, the towering slopes waiting cold and powerful above us.
And something else would distract me, so I'd leave him there.
And I wouldn't think anything of it. I wouldn't care that these moments wouldn't last forever. I didn't know to cherish them. I thought that there would always be tomorrow. Another day. Full of fun, and rocks, and super powers, and the games that meant so much to him, but that to me, were just a days play.
I didn't know that “tomorrow” was always different than “today.” I didn't realize that eventually I'd grow up, and want more than he could give me. I didn't know I'd ever have to leave, or that these games I loved would suddenly become memories, and stories to put in a scrap book. I didn't understand that tomorrows change things.
All my life, my daddy's been here for me. For my family. I can't remember a time in my life where he was not the owner of my steadfast admiration and love. He was everything.
In the winter of 2011, I went skiing with my friends. The slopes were tall, but suddenly, I didn't feel so small next to them. I'd forgotten entirely about the “Rocky Mountain Ice Cafe” and the other skiers weren't superheroes anymore. They were my peers.
That's what tomorrows do to you. They make you forget all the yesterdays.
I spent the day laughing and goofing around, cracking pointless jokes I can't remember now. I lived in the moment. Nothing mattered but the top of the hill, whether my makeup was running, and whether or not we'd see any cute guys in the lodge.
But now, months later, no matter how much fun I had...some piece of me wishes I'd have stayed home. Because while I was off being a teenager, forgetting everything, not caring, my childhood, life as I knew it, was ending. And I'll never forget how as soon as I got home, my mood changed. The day changed. My family changed. Everything I'd known changed.
My father took my in his arms. He asked me if I loved him, and I rolled my eyes behind an exasperated “yes.”
And I noticed that there were tears in his eyes, but I didn't understand them.
“Do you remember how we used to play Rock Detectives?” He asked me, smiling just a little, speaking softly into my ear.
I nodded.
“And Rescue Heroes?”
And it went on like that for a while. He listed the things I did as a kid, things I did with him. And we both smiled, because for a moment, we both wished those things could still happen.
But they couldn't. Time had taken us both by the necks. It was tomorrow now, and there was no time for a game. Just life.
My dad hugged me close, and he cried into my damp, snow covered hair.
“Promise you'll always be my er-bear?”
And by that point, I'd noticed that my mother and brother weren't in the kitchen with us. They were upstairs already, even though it wasn't bed time. And I heard my brothers quiet tears, from all the way downstairs. And I'll never forget how it sounded to finally understand. How it sounded when I finally had to grow up.
Mommy and Daddy had been fighting for years. That much I knew.
But on this day, they both decided that they didn't want to wait for tomorrow anymore.
So he kissed my forehead, as I cried. And he told me that he hoped everything would all work out. All he needed was some time to think.
So he walked out the door, and he drove to the apartment I didn't know he'd rented, and he's lived there for the past six months. I see him everyday. He's still my rock detective. I'm still his rescue hero.
And life sped on. And for a while, we all seemed to forget that things were less than normal. He'd hang around the house during the day, playing catch with my brother and running me back and forth to skating practices. Sometimes he'd stay for dinner. We'd forget that anything had changed, until around eight o clock when he'd say goodbye, and drive off to his apartment. And then it'd be real again.
I'm writing this on Wednesday July sixth, 2011. It was eighty eight degrees at 5:30, when daddy joined us and my mom's sister and son for the last meal he'd eat as part of our family. It was stir fry. And he was silent as he tossed bits of onions and peppers around in a pool of teriyaki sauce.
Early today, my parents filed for divorce. I don't know how to feel, or how to think, or what to say.
My mind just keeps replaying that day in January with the ski slopes that were real, and the sounds of change and uncertainty. Replaying memories of which I wish I remembered the details, of rock hunting, super powers, and feeling small next to things like staircases that really aren't even all that big to begin with.
At 7:24, when he came up to my bedroom to say goodbye, he held me close and cried. He stroked my back, and I said nothing. This couldn't really be happening.
“You're always gonna be my baby.” He whispered through tears. And I held onto his blue polo shirt, and forbid myself to cry. Because this wouldn't change anything. He'd still be my hero.
“Don't ever forget that I love you.”
And it felt just like that winters day, only this time, I wasn't relying on tomorrow anymore. All I wanted was yesterday. To wake up in the morning to the sounds of him singing in the shower, to go to bed at night listening to him clap and groan at the baseball game on TV. On school nights he'd iron his shirts for the next morning, and if I went down in the night for a glass of water, he'd put down the iron and tell me some story about my great great grandparents in Ireland, or some memory of my grandfather from when he was little. And I'd smile through a haze of drowsiness, and amble back to bed. And everything would feel safe. And tomorrow was nothing but another day.
I think that's what I'm going to miss most about all of this. That feeling of normalcy, serenity. Knowing that if a thunder storm came, he'd be there to tune the radio in the basement. That if we were snowed in, all we'd have to do was wake him up, and he'd be out with the snow blower in minutes. Waking up on Christmas morning, and curling up next to him in front of the tree while my brother and I tore open our presents. Every night on Christmas Eve, even when we were too old to really care, he'd open the old copy of “Twas the Night Before Christmas”, and he'd read with a voice like Orson Wells, that made us laugh and hug him even closer.
For once in my life, I haven't the slightest idea as to what tomorrow brings. And that's the most horrifying feeling you can ever imagine.
I can only hope that life will go on. That my mom will smile again, and that, soon, things might go back to the way they were, or at least bear a resemblance.
I hope I don't forget about Rock Detectives, or Rescue Heroes, or any of the priceless memories of my childhood that make me who I am today. Daddy won't be living with me anymore, but I hope that doesn't change much. I hope that we can add to these memories. Still laugh at nerdy jokes that only he and I would ever understand.
They always told me things would change. To stop yearning to grow up, because once I'm there, I'll wish I was a kid again. And I laughed at that, because I didn't believe it.
But they were right, all those dreamers who had to grow up one day. I'm not a kid anymore. I'm finally growing up. But right now, all I want is to be six years old again, battling the world just to save my daddy from danger, smearing squirt cheese all over my face at the imaginary cafe that we built together.
Someday, daddy, let's go back. Let's pretend to be small again, meaningless compared to the towering world above us. Let's hunt for rocks, and I'll save you from any danger that comes your way, just like I promised when I was four.
I wish I could save you now, daddy. From whatever trouble you've gotten your heart in today. I wish that Rescue Heroes were really as invincible as we believed them to be.
But you'll always be my world, daddy. No matter what happens. So thank you for every yesterday that you've filled with laughter and love, and thank you for the memories. You're the best dad in the entire world, and I'll love you until the end of time. This doesn't mean we can't play those games anymore. All it means is that we've both got some growing up to do. But I know that you'll be there with me every step of the way, no matter what hardships meet us at the top of the mountain.
I love you. And I won't ever forget these memories, or the luster of the childhood you've built for me.
You'll always be my rock detective.