It’s 5 AM in the morning on January 16th 1996 and my wife is trying to wake me up telling me.....”Mark, you need to get up and take me to the hospital…..I think it’s not a false alarm this time.” I’d heard those words several times in the prior 2 weeks and each time it would be a false alarm and we would head back home. But not this time…..you see, my unborn daughter decided that after a couple of weeks of playing tricks on her Mom and Dad she would try to sneak into the world when we least expected it. Still a little groggy and probably wary of my unborn daughters’ precocious nature over the prior couple of weeks, I took my time getting ready. Driving to the hospital my very pregnant and in pain wife was urging me to “speed it up unless I wanted to deliver my daughter myself”. (Knowing my weakness for seeing blood and fear of anything medical my wife was using her best warfare to stress to me her condition)
I got my wife to the hospital, got her checked in and to her birthing room. And after a few hours of on-again, off-again labor pains, my lovely little girl came into the world early that afternoon. And since then, my world has never been the same.
Where did time go?
I sit here on the eve of my daughters 16th birthday, what is a special time in a teen's life. They go from being just a regular teenager to being able to get a permit to drive and suddenly becoming mobile. Instead of coming into my study or going downstairs to ask Mom to drive her, now I am sure I will hear…..” Mom/Dad can I borrow the car keys……. (insert best friends name here) wants me to meet her at (insert favorite place to hang out).”
For most of you who read this, you have probably already experienced this, and come out of the other side of the tunnel unscathed and breathing a sigh of relief. You will tell me that everything will be OK because we have taught her all the good values, judgment skills, and life lessons that will help her as she moves into the next stage of her young life. So….why do I feel a small sense of loss?
I should be happy….smiling that my little girl is now a beautiful young lady. Luckily for me she inherited her mother’s beauty, common sense and passion to help others first. From me…well she got her sense of adventure and thirst for continued knowledge. (That sense of adventure is what keeps me up at night sometimes).
But for me, I start to realize that there is no turning the clock back anymore. Suddenly the little girl who cuddled up next to her daddy while we watched Disney movies, the Disney Channel, or the Christmas movies has now become so much more. She no longer needs me to carry her upstairs to her room because she has fallen asleep…or come sit by her bedside and talk to her a little while before she tried to go to sleep. Now…all she needs from me is a hug, a kiss on the cheek and to turn off her light as I leave the room. (What was I thinking those nights when I just wanted her to stop asking so many questions and go to sleep so I could do the same? What I wouldn’t give to have a few of those moments back)
I know we can’t keep our sons or daughters young forever, any differently than our parents could keep us from growing and changing either. But that doesn’t make it any easier to have to acknowledge another stage in the growth of my daughters’ life. It’s bad enough that I had to come to grips with boyfriends and dating, now I have to worry about driving and boys and dating.
So…what does that leave me to do? Well, like the rest of you have already discovered, all we can do is love them, hope for the best, and love them some more.
But you see….I still have a million memories and they flood my mind every day. I remember the little girl who loved dressing up as Cinderella and going to Disney World with her daddy in tow looking for the next Disney Princess to have her picture taken with and to get her autograph.
I remember a Valentine’s Day Daddy/Daughter Dance that ended with Daddy having to carry her from the truck to the house because she had so much fun she fell asleep on the way home. But not before telling me she had so much fun….and just before nodding off, saying “Daddy, I love you”.
I remember a very little girl jumping up on stage and doing an impromptu dance because she thought no one was watching. And I remember watching as a young lady left the house headed to her very first formal dance.
All these stages I remember and each one makes me smile….and each one brings a tear to my eyes.
So, for you Emily……may the beginning of this new time in your life be as rewarding as it was for me when I was your age. You will have so many questions and so many new experiences. And each will be another step to growing into the young woman your mother and I hope you will become.
I leave you with this one quote from my favorite author and one that you have heard many times, but takes on a special meaning as you grow up:
"Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth."- Mark Twain
Happy 16th birthday Emily!!!
With Love,
Dad
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