It is my opinion that there is no experience as completely life altering as the day that you hold your child, newly emerged into this world, and feel that sudden electric connection as your eyes meet for the very first time.
In those few seconds you are suddenly connected to the world around you in a way that you have never felt before. Every dream, every fear, and every idea you ever had about yourself is suddenly brought into sharp focus and you find yourself wanting to be a better human being in order to earn the right to hold and to be loved by the beautiful child staring up into your face.
And so it was with me.
I was not just going to be daddy. I was going to be "Super Daddy."
But alas "Super Daddy" was not also "Super Husband" and my marriage fell apart. Which meant that I broke the very first promise I ever made to my daughter, that she would NOT have to grow up the child of divorce as had been the fate of both her mother and I.
But even a "Super Daddy" cannot make love out of nothing.
I did vow however to NEVER break a promise made to her again. Ever.
The divorce was brutal. My wife wanted to have full legal AND physical custody. She had money, I did not.
I spent every cent I had, borrowed heavily from family members for the first time in my life, and took side jobs that put money in my pocket but made me feel badly for lowering myself to accept work that I felt beneath me.
Eventually the judge demanded that we work out a 50/50 custody deal. And so we did, with my ex-wife crying through the entire negotiation.
I remarried when my daughter was still a toddler, which then provided her with TWO families. Not perfect, but still she was surrounded by love, and seemed happy and well adjusted in both houses. Of course my ex-wife also remarried.
For a while my daughter's mother was fine with living in Alaska. but after a few years she wanted to pack up and move out of state to Georgia. Why Georgia? I still have no good idea.
My first reaction was predictable. "You can go wherever the hell you want, but if you think you are taking my little girl away from me you are sadly mistaken!"
Back to court we went.
Another furious battle ensued, but I was encouraged to skip the legal fight and instead work it out in mediation. What was there to work out I thought? My little girl was not going anywhere.
However mediation is a process in which sometimes the unacceptable becomes acceptable.
My ex was determined to go to Georgia. "How could a loving father deny his child the opportunity to live with her mother?" I was asked. There was no way to win a battle in which my little girl's heart was so nakedly exposed and vulnerable.
So I agreed to a painful compromise.
My ex-wife could move down to Georgia and my daughter would live with me for the first three years and visit with her twice a year, and then we would reverse it for the next three years, and after that she would be old enough to choose her primary residence. At that time I was confident she would choose to live with me. Clairvoyance is NOT one of my gifts.
I kept telling myself I had done the right thing. That I was being an adult. That someday my daughter would thank me for not being selfish and denying her access to her mother. Those thoughts did nothing to ease my pain or my fears.
The first time I put my little girl on a plane headed to Georgia by herself was a day defined by hazy memory and sharply felt emotions. I vividly remember watching her walk hand in hand with the kindly stewardess toward the jet bridge, barely visible behind the large pink backpack full of her favorite books and with Sherman, her cabbage patch doll, dangling from one impossibly tiny hand. She was just seven years old.
She looked back to smile and called out "I love you Daddy." one last time before disappearing around the corner to board the plane. I fervently hoped that she had been too far away to see the tears streaming down my cheeks.
I remember standing at the window for the longest time to watch the plane taxi down the runway, then willing it to take off safely, before watching it fade into the tiniest of dots on the horizon. I was overwhelmed with the irrational belief that if I blinked, or lost concentration, for even a second that something horrible, and unthinkable would happen to that plane.
After the jet was impossible to detect against the blue of the sky I became suddenly aware that the world had somehow shifted out of focus. Everything that had become sharp and beautiful to my eyes on the day she was born was suddenly dull and barely perceptible.
I wish I could describe what I did next, but I truly do not remember. I do know it took me two hours to finally make my way home to my wife, who was pretty worried by that time, but realized from the look on my face that it was better that she simply hug me rather than to complain about my absence.
It took me a day or two to bounce back to my usual good humor, but always my mind was distracted by worry. And that worry lasted until months later when my daughter arrived safely back in Anchorage and came running back into my arms again.
I can report that things became easier after that first time. Not "easy" mind you, just "easier."
After awhile I was able to make it all of the way out of the airport terminal before becoming overwhelmed with emotion and unable to drive, stopping by the side of the road to gather myself before continuing the ride home.
Because I knew my time was short, and that in three short years my daughter would be living most of the year with her mother, I wanted to expose her to all of the things that I loved. To share experiences and hopefully create lasting memories.
I loved the outdoors so we went on long hikes, splashed through creeks, and rolled down hills together.
I loved movies so we sat huddled in the darkness each weekend watching the newest release. Comedies, action, animated, horror, we watched and loved them all.
I also loved music so we sang til our throats were dry and danced til out feet were numb.
And I loved books. Oh, how I loved books.
The most magical, most important, most sacred time for us was the hour before bedtime when I would sit by her bed and read to her, as her eyes grew heavy and her breathing became deep, right up until she could no longer support the weight of her eyelids and slowly drifted off to sleep.. Then I would reach over to turn off the light by her bed, kiss her on her forehead, and promise to continue our adventure the following night.
A promise, like all of my promises, that I never failed to keep.
And let me just tell you dear reader that these were not just ordinary books. Oh no, not for MY little girl. These were the classics.
We had started when she was quite small, age four I believe, with
The World of Pooh. No colorfully illustrated Disney sanitized version was this, but rather the original, just as A. A. Milne had written it, which began as follows:
"Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head. behind Christopher Robin."
And what followed was the magical journey through the "hundred acre wood." complete with a different voice, compliments of Daddy, assigned to each and every character. My daughter's squeals of enjoyment and wide smiling eyes still the greatest payment I have ever received.
In our many evenings together we prowled the jungles beside Mowgli, with Rudyard Kipling as our guide. Danced through the clouds with Peter Pan as he flew back to Neverland with Wendy and her brothers in tow. Fought back our tears as young Travis released Old Yeller from the pain of a rabies bite. And walked beside Tom Sawyer as he explored his world with his pal Huck Finn, and learned about love as he clumsily wooed Becky Thatcher.
There were many others as well but it was this last book. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, that I was reading during the last few weeks before my daughter made the transition, agreed to in our mediated custody arrangement, and went to live in Georgia with her mother. As always on the night before she left, I closed the book and promised to read more just as soon she was back with me and lying in her bed.
I will not bore you with the details of how everything I expected to occur after my daughter's three years with my ex-wife failed to materialize. But I will say that she greatly enjoyed being a big sister and that, as much as she loved me, she felt that her mother depended on her to help care for the new babies in their life. I certainly could not selfishly ask my daughter to abandon her sisters in order to return to Alaska and live with me.
I still saw her every summer, and alternated between Christmas and Spring breaks, but we never returned to the world of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and our priorities shifted to other things.
Going to the movies together became our primary father/daughter activity and soon her reading shifted to lighting techniques for movies, the wonders of stage design, and sound engineering, as she prepared for the life she would soon have behind the cameras working on television shows and movie sets. And really I could not be more proud of the woman she has become and passion she shows in pursuing her dreams.
As many of you already know after all of these many years she is now living here with me. In fact right now, as I write this, she is only about ten feet away sleeping once again under her father's roof, and surrounded by the Alaska that we both love so much.
Just last night we were regaling her friends with stories about her life growing up here and all of the adventures that she and I had shared. It was during that conversation that I looked over at my angel and saw her looking back with an odd expression on her face, as if she had suddenly remembered a long forgotten secret.
This morning, as I stumbled into my home office, clutching my cup of coffee and wiping the sleep dust from my eyes I found something unexpected waiting for me on my desk.
So I guess I know what I am doing tonight.
Let's see, where were we?
Chapter 15. Tom's Stealthy Visit Home
"A few minutes later Tom was in the shoal water of the bar, wading toward the Illinois shore."
Gee I wonder what the boys have been up to all of these years? Well I imagine we will have to find that out together. Because after all, I DID promise.
