When I was 20, I used to walk to work every day. My dad worked construction, and every day I would walk by his work site on my way to work and if I didn’t see him, I’d spot his car. Somehow it was comforting. I was walking from my first apartment to my new job, saving up for my first car. I was on my own, I was safe, and walking by that site every day only added to the familiarity and the first feeling of home in many years. I needed that, I needed him.
This year, I turned 29. I didn’t hear much from my dad but I think that I am realizing that it is alright. This past year has been one of growth in a lot of ways. Growing up, my dad really wasn’t there for me in a lot of ways but I grew up to understand him and all that he couldn’t really give. That year that I was 20 was the year that he turned up on my doorstep. We started to get coffee.. A lot. We talked about my hopes, my dreams, my fears.. good days and bad days. He listened through it all. Some days, he still let me down but that was alright, he was giving me something that he’d never given before. He was listening.
I haven’t seen much of my dad this year. I miss him. This last visit with him he talked a lot about politics and baseball. He didn’t ask very many questions and I realized then what he had clearly already come to understand—that I don’t need him anymore—not in the way that I used to. Through everything, I have been alright and there are others who need him more. He said it during one of our phone conversations last year, “I always knew that I would never have to worry about you.” And maybe, that is enough. To know that for the man who has given everything of himself to everyone around him, I have never given a single sleepless night.
Freeing Kate 