Daddy-O

Dear Dad,

 

It's interesting how sometimes things work out in ways you couldn't have anticipated.  I guess no one really ever imagines that their parents will get divorced when they are young, that they will grow up virtually not knowing their father and wondering what their relationship would have been like had things been different. 

 

It's interesting to find old pictures of you when you were younger and see you as a man and not my father.  I can't help but wonder what you were like and wishing I would have known you then and wishing I could know you now.

 

But I guess that's the bittersweet thing about time.  It keeps moving on and marching forward.  It may be finite in this life but I know that after it will continue on.  And this tenuous and fragile relationship we are building now, filled with the hope of continued forgiveness, it can continue to grow.  And it will.  Because we matter to each other.

 

I hope that on this, your 80th birthday, you realize that despite the distance that we may still be bridging, I love you with the deepest love a daughter can have for her dad.

 

Love, Mary

P.S.  Look at those guns.  I guess it is inevitable that your kids are freakishly strong with genetics like that.