The Worst Day of My Life

Today is the 14th anniversary of the worst day of my life... the day my father died.

I've written volumes, expounding on what he meant to me and how much I miss him. But truly, there are no words that come close to explaining.

I would love to tell you who he was, to tell you everything about him. And I would love everyone to know how much a father can mean, particularly in his daughter's life.

For now, and pardon the impersonality... I love what Linda Ellerbee said about her father:

He was generous with his affection, given to great, awkward, engulfing hugs, and I can remember so clearly the smell of his hugs, all starched shirt, tobacco, Old Spice and Cutty Sark. Sometimes I think I’ve never been properly hugged since.

Daddy's hugs meant love and security in their purest senses and were far from awkward, but I remember them distinctly. It's funny, though, the older I got, the more I didn't want him to let go. I know, for a fact, that I've never been loved or treated, by anyone else, the way he loved me, or treated the way he treated me. No one has ever even come close.

As an example, Daddy and I had a telephone conversation one day, the content of which I don't remember, but he said something that made me cry. When the call ended, I can only assume he felt as bad as I did.

The next day I received, in the mail, a typewritten letter from him that read simply:

Sometimes daddies say the wrong things. And sometimes daddies say too much.

Your daddy is sometimes like that.

The letter was signed, "Your daddy always loves you. Daddy." And there was a $20 bill enclosed which, to this day (and I've kept it), makes me smile. That was just SO Daddy.

The bottom line is that no one has ever believed in me like Daddy believed in me. And I know I've never been properly hugged, loved or believed in since.