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As I said in yesterday’s post…. my children have given me thousand of memories.  However, in today’s post… I am the child.  It is about my father.

 

I am an only child, and a Daddy’s girl my entire life.  When I married, I was 18 and I got married on December 8, just a couple of weeks before Christmas.  For Christmas, my parents drove up to our tiny little apartment in Alabama.  They got there on Christmas Eve, around dinner time.  The Ex and I were so young, and so broke.    We didn’t have the money for a Christmas tree, so I’d bought a little 1-foot decorative tree and decorated it with homemade little ornaments and put it on the Baker’s Rack in the dining room.  The bottom shelf was “under the tree,” so that’s where we put the little presents for each other, and for my parents that we’d scraped together money for.  It was a largely “homemade” Christmas that year.  I made my parents a quilt and some new pillowcases, I made some cookies for my Daddy, and crocheted him a scarf in the colors of his favorite football team.  There were a couple of little store bought things, but mostly.. I handmade all of the gifts.  For the Ex, included.

When my parents showed up that night, my dad was carrying 2 large black trashbags full of presents for us, and the ones that they would exchange between each other.  It was like Santa had come to town!  I was so excited to see presents for our meager little Christmas!   I made dinner that night, and my mama was going to help me make my first Christmas dinner the next day, because we were having company over.  It was great.

Christmas morning, when we all assembled to open presents, I divided them into little piles of joy, according to the nametags on each.  There was a little tiny box under the tree that the Ex was just ITCHING to give me, and he insisted that I open it first.  So, I did.  Inside the tiny little box were tiny little diamond stud earrings.  1/4 carat.  TINY.  I was so incredibly grateful and squeed with joy, jumping into his arms and hugging him, and showing my parents..  Showing my Daddy.  My first diamond earrings!  I didn’t know how the Ex had managed to scrape up the cash for them, he must’ve saved for months.  I put them on immediately.

In the hooplah of excitement, my Daddy slid a little package out of my pile of gifts and sort of set it off to the side.  I said “What are you doing?”

He said, “That’s for your grandmother.  I don’t know how it got here, your mama was supposed to mail it off with the rest of her gifts.”

I didn’t think anything of it, and went back to putting on my new, amazing little earrings.

We opened the rest of our gifts, and the holiday was beautiful and wonderful.

Nine months later, my father died of a heart attack, 3 days after open heart surgery.  When I was at my parents’ house, my mother told me to go through his things quickly, his shirts and jewelry box, etc.  To pick out whatever I wanted, before she invited his siblings to do the same.  My father’s jewelry and treasures were mostly mixed in with my mother’s in her jewelry armoir, so I went through the drawers carefully, looking for things that were his.  In the bottom drawer, I saw that little package he’d taken away from my pile at Christmas.  Except the gift tag had my name on it, not my grandmother’s.

I took it to my mom.  ”Mama.  What is this?”  She put down what she was working on and sat down with me.

“Open it,” she said.

I unwrapped the box, and opened it.   Inside it were 1 carat diamond stud earrings.  I immediately sobbed.

She didn’t have to say anything.  I knew.  She spoke and said, “He was so excited when he brought those home.  He picked them out himself.”

I was his little girl.  His princess. I am an only child, and he had been my hero my entire life.  Yet, in that moment, the sheer magnitude of what a big man he was overwhelmed me.   He’d picked out those earrings for me.  He’d wanted me to have them, and he’d wanted to be the man to give me my first pair of diamond earrings.   However, just a few weeks after he’d walked me down the aisle and given me to another man to love, he stepped aside and allowed that man to have the spotlight.   He’d watched as I poured my love and gratitude onto someone else, after he’d had it exclusively to himself my entire life.  Instead of trampling on the moment with bigger diamonds, he’d faded back and let me be in love with my husband.

No one has ever, nor will ever, love me the way he did.  His love was selfless and beautiful and pure.  He’d been my hero my whole life, but never more than in that moment.

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