Forrest Gump got it wrong: Life is like an ice cream store—on vacation with your dad.
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I was a kid. That undifferentiated mass of years, when you do things and think things and are things in a way very different from when you grow up. I don’t know how old I was, but I was a kid.
We were on a family vacation to a lake, it was hot and sunny and the water was warm enough to swim in and dad came into the water with us to play. Playing with dad in the water was always a full contact sport, and like any intense activity of childhood, sometimes ended in irrational tears, but I loved it. Being thrown around and tickling and splashing with wild abandon. I remember it crisp and clear, and splashy. It was incredibly fun.
Hide your freak flag in the closet and be more cautious, because your wild heart is going to get hurt in this life unless you Toughen Up.
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We went for ice cream one afternoon, an outing into town, probably to grab some groceries, and while that business was being done, my sister and I required entertainment beyond what the coin operated candy dispensers in the grocery store could provide. My dad, stepping up to the challenge, took us for ice cream.
It was one of those fantastic ice cream shops that you dream about in your childhood, more of a fantasy than a reality, more flavors than your mind can possibly comprehend. I hadn’t tried fully 95% of the flavors on display, and, adventurous little thing that I was, of course had to sample something new. I boldly ordered what turned out to be a fateful cone of tiger claw ice cream. I was proud and excited. Tiger! So cool!
I tried it. Yuck! So gross!
It was awful. As soon as I tasted it I knew it was a mistake. It was just … blech. There was no way I could eat it. I stared at it, dejected, the silent hopeless sadness of a child. There was nothing I could do.
I still remember my dad thinking about the situation. He comes from a time and place where Tough Life Lessons Toughened People For Life, and is the kind of trusting, forgiving, empathetic and, well, kind man that sees those tough lessons from his own childhood as gifts from his parents; gifts he’s often shared with my sister and me. Let’s be honest: kid chooses the wrong flavor due to an uninhibited desire for new things and little understanding of risk—that’s just such an opportunity for a tough lesson. Too bad, kid! Be more conservative next time! Hide your freak flag in the closet and be more cautious, because your wild heart is going to get hurt in this life unless you Toughen Up.
It would have made sense. I would have learned from it. I would have learned hurt, sadness, disappointment. I already had to hide my enthusiasm for life, Monday to Friday all through the school year. It would have crushed me to learn that it wasn’t safe to explore, even with my dad.
One of the hardest lessons that many people in our broken world of broken homes have to learn is that they can’t count on support from their dads, that he won’t be there when they need them.
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Instead, he let me choose a different flavor. I chose chocolate. It was fantastic.
And I learned something much better than the Tough Lesson that could have taught. I learned that you can always, always rely on chocolate; that chocolate is an adventure all its own; that it’s OK to make a mistake now and then. Most of all, I learned that I could always, always rely on my dad. That life may be full of surprisingly terrible things, the Tiger Claw Ice Creams of the world … and that if they came upon me accidentally, I wouldn’t have to face it alone. You may think that I learned to be a princess, not to appreciate things, to lean too much on my parents for support. Here’s the thing, though: true support isn’t an unlimited supply of free ice cream (or free anything else.) It’s presence, love, and trustworthiness.
When it comes to dads, there can never be too much of those things. One of the hardest lessons that many people in our broken world of broken homes have to learn is that they can’t count on support from their dads, that he won’t be there when they need them.
I’m lucky. I learned that day that mine is, and always will be, for as long as he’s alive and able.
• When I was overwhelmed with midterms my first year in university and my computer died and then the power went out and I was in the dark in a cold strange city and couldn’t do the homework due the next day … I called him. And he listened. And I felt better.
• When I realized that I was going to marry the wrong guy (not right at the altar, mind you, it was months out, but still) he dropped everything to come and help me move my stuff out of the home I’d shared with my erstwhile fiance, and he watched sappy romantic movies with me and comforted me while I cried about it. And I was OK.
• When a guy ran a red light and we collided in the intersection, and I discovered over the following weeks that a brain injury had cut the narrative thread of my life, leaving me untethered in a surreal fog of confusion, in terrible physical pain, unable to think clearly and with memory loss … he was there. He and my mom were the anchors that cared for me, fed me, even helped me clothe myself; they were why I survived. He drove me to my million doctors appointments. When the insurance company used a sleazy doctor’s report to cut me off, he was there, and he and my mom found a way to lend me the money I needed to keep getting the treatments necessary for my healing.
• In the darkest time of my life, when I lost everything, including myself, and had to learn to live with the fact that I am now different, “differently abled” and will live a different life than I ever expected or wanted or planned for … yeah. You get it. He was there. He is there.
And he’s taught me that, over and over. I learned the gist of it, that day in the ice cream shop. But I’ve had a lot to learn, to really get it.
I remember the first time I told my dad that he’s my hero.
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There are so many women in our world today who don’t understand just how much the men who care about them want to provide for them. I was raised in a world full of such women, in the general of “I need a man as much as a fish needs a bicycle,” a world in which women who admit the ways they need men, or need men at all, or even receive help from men, are weak, disempowered, have ‘internalized mysogeny’ and are complicit in their own oppression and that of their sisters. So many women don’t understand how much men are willing to give up, to change, to do, to give, in order for the women they love to be ok, to be safe, to be happy. My dad worked most of his adult life, doing exhausting and stressful work 60 hours a week, to provide for me and my family. I didn’t get that being away from us was the price that he paid, the sacrifice he made, to be able to do that. I had learned in my heart that he was there for me, but my head believed something else. I didn’t get it. I had all the proof in the world, but I believed what I had been told, instead of what my heart was telling me.
I didn’t get it until I was brain injured, and lost and scared, and in some ways, like a kid again; in that undifferentiated time and place, so reliant on my parents.
I remember the first time I told my dad that he’s my hero. We were in the waiting room at the brain rehab center, going into another stressful appointment, with more doctors who didn’t have the time to truly help me; doctors my dad had been patiently and repeatedly phoning and sending emails to for months. I told him he was my hero, and he just smiled.
That was the first time I said it, because I finally got it. But the first time I knew, was when he bought me chocolate ice cream on family vacation when I was a kid.
I love you, dad. Thank you for the ice cream, and for everything.
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Photo: GettyImages
A breath of fresh air to read this. As a father of a daughter, now going through divorce.
It feels as if women have waged war on men. The good men who care, bare the brunt of their force. Nice to hear someone voice a kind word.
Hats off to your father and mother. Best wishes to you and your recovery
Thank you so much for this candid comment. Know that I, and other women like me, see and empathize with the effect that bearing the brunt of that force has on the many good men in the world! We are grateful for your bravery, for your strength, and deeply, deeply saddened by your pain and the alienation the gender wars have wrought between the genders. A big part of my work is attempting to bride that gap, call a ‘truce’, and bring us back to each other. I appreciate your comment and encouragement a lot! I know that a stranger… Read more »
Very rare that I have emotion. It’s even rarer that I’m lost for words, because I have something to say about everything.
I’d like to start blathering on about daughters, my daughter, what a daughter means to a man, but no matter what story I told I could not upstage what I just read…twice.
I even went back to see if I’ve ever made any negative comments about your writing.
Shaking my head.
Your dad needs to share the recipe for you with the world.
Wow thank you so much for this comment. Now I’m getting all teared up!
That means so much to me. And this piece was the perfect surprise for my dad 🙂
I’m really glad you liked it and it resonated with you!
From my heart,
Kathryn