Letter From A Father Who Learned To Grow Up With His Daughter

Yesterday he was born and today, after a few hours, university will start. Yesterday they told me I was going to be a father, in a short time she was crawling and a few minutes ago she was in her first driving lesson. Yesterday he looked at us as someone who looks at the gods and today as someone who looks at people who know each and every one of their faults, in depth. In the middle of it a night passed, a night when I was thinking, dumbfounded, watching her grow…

Growing up sometimes, because other times I had to go out to work. At other times your brothers needed me, my children; my friends or my parents; your mother, me, i needed me too sometimes. I got home late or I couldn’t think of stories. So he left the age of invented stories to begin to experience how reality can be infinitely more cruel, just as it can be much more enchanting.

a parent’s hopes

Yesterday had a lot of hopes placed on her. Hopes that were all mine and that she hadn’t said anything about. At least nothing more than pointing with your glass when you were thirsty or filling your mouth with what was in front of you when you were hungry. Today my hopes are still mine, but the reality is that she built hers and I had to accept. It’s an all-night process.

I would like her to be a lawyer. Because I understand that they are people who lead a comfortable life, who are in an important position, and who, by their training, acquire a sense of justice superior to most mortals. However, she wanted to be a journalist.

But not those who feature the news, but those who travel and tell about the wars and give voice to these great stories that are also anonymous. This scares me, so much so that sometimes it doesn’t let me sleep. Meanwhile, she looks at me with this face that she has fallen in love with someone without even knowing it, but with her heart. As a father, that look, her look, I’m also proud of.

give up control

As a parent, it wasn’t easy to relinquish control either. I always saw her smaller than she really was, more vulnerable, more swayable and innocent. I also saw how many times she headed towards the cliff with all the determination in the world and I had to allow her to do that, because as much as I would have liked to be her best teacher, there are lessons that only life teaches or that you have to learn from others.

She looks so pretty, so pretty lying down. I don’t know if she knows, but she is the most beautiful girl in the world. I would say this many times and she would smile at me, then she would blush and in the end she would answer me with “Daddy!” (don’t embarrass me).

It’s hard for me to understand this battle that started against her body, to rescue from my memory those moments when I also cared a lot about what boys and girls my age thought. Understand that to understand, it is often necessary to remember, because in this exercise I also found nostalgia, and my eyes filled with tears.

The discomfort that going to school in that horrible coat could cause me, hand-sewn in my mother’s boring and itchy moments. I don’t know which coat I ordered her to wear, it might even have been several. Maybe it was those conservatory classes that I forced her to attend, until her disinterest in music ended my desire for her to be a friend of eighth and sixteenth notes. I couldn’t make her like it, she scratched in front of me and I consoled myself thinking it was good for her.

I perceived…

Now, if I were to start over, I don’t think I would force you to do so many good things for you. At least from the outside, without sharing them with you. I wish I could have noticed how you looked at the ball when you were little and played football with you. Having been less aware of dangers and more aware of illusions. Having agreed to play before you gave up on me and found other girls to do it with.

I wish I had understood earlier that you were perfectly capable of protecting yourself when you were cold, of eating when you were hungry. Because those were the needs you had in the beginning, but later you didn’t. Then what you needed was encouragement for all the projects you started, answers to all your questions about your age, the company of someone who was not a director, but support, comfort. Maybe it was part of the role I played, maybe it was part of being a father.

It is said that emotions are magic… and that human beings can have so much that we are able to experience several emotions at once. I feel sad because some of the time we didn’t spend together will never come back. I suppose all parents feel the same way at some point in their lives, but that doesn’t comfort me.

However, what comforts me is that now, when I see you fighting your own battles, I feel proud that you honestly face them. Because it’s up to you to decide them, whether right or wrong, and because you’ve found the passion. Watching you grow up, I understood that I wanted an easy life for you, and that you want a happy life for yourself. I just hope you get it, and of course, share it with me.

Images courtesy of Soosh .