I’ve written about my dad a lot over the years, mostly about how awesome he is and how he is the high standard against whom all the men in my life will be compared. But I don’t think I’ve ever written about my personal relationship with him as a father, and not just as a role model and spiritual guide.
I read a book entitled “His Brain, Her Brain” by Walt and Barb Larimore a couple of years ago that made this observation: Women form relationships by talking; men form relationships by doing things together.
It made me realize that this was definitely true in the different ways that I interacted with my mom and dad.
Before I’d read that book, it was a minor frustration of mine that having long, sit-down talks with my mother always seemed more natural than those with my father. With Mom, there were never any awkward moments of silence between coming up with things to talk about. Even though I enjoyed conversations with my dad, I sometimes felt like he didn’t always feel like talking. He is nowhere near as loud and boisterous as my sisters, my mother and I.
But after reading that part of the book, I remembered all those times that Dad would call me to come and help him fix something in the house. Or those times he would ask me to teach him how to use Photoshop (which I consider one of my life’s greatest achievements) and I’d just sit beside him while he worked. Or when he’d laugh uproariously while watching Looney Tunes on TV with me and my sisters when we were little; when he would throw us in the air from his shoulders in the swimming pool; when he showed me how to build and fly a kite.
Since then, I’ve observed that we bond more by doing things together rather than just talking. I decided to try and learn to play golf – his favorite hobby, which he’s been wanting to share with his kids for a long time – and sometimes when we’re on vacation and early in the morning I’ll spot him crouching behind a bush and making bird calls, I’ll crawl up to him and ask what specie of bird he’s trying to attract. When he asks me to help him fix something I see it as an opportunity to spend quality time with him (not to mention that this actually made me love doing repairs and assembling things around the house). And in those moments at the dinner table when Mom, my sisters and I pause for breath between our lightning-quick jumble of ideas and he says something in his low, quiet voice, I realize that the rest of us actually slow down, lean in and listen more intently to what he has to say than when we’re just waiting for the next opening to blurt out our thoughts. Oftentimes it is in the quietness of his actions that lets me know my Dad loves me.
Dad, I know I’m not the most affectionate of daughters, but I hope you know that whenever I do something like hold up the flashlight and hand you tools while you demonstrate how to fix a toilet tank, or when I show you a new brush technique on Photoshop, that’s my own little way of saying “I love you.”
Happy 60th birthday, Daddy!
