… where your backbone ought to be. - Clementine Paddleford.
Oliver & Dad
My brother remembers everything. I often forget what year it is. We joke Brandon remembers coming out of the birth canal… I have memories through pictures… pieced together I have a recollection of my childhood, but I don’t really remember anything, besides a few pivotal moments (the day I got in trouble for playing footsy with Dan Taylor in 4th grade… the day Ms. Barnum refused to call on me when I clearly knew the answer to the question that the hardest capital cursive letter is Q… like i said, pivotal). There are pictures of my dad with his oversized hat and untrimmed mustache holding me as though I’m a rag doll. My mom often reminds me that I was sick when I was younger and my dad would just hold me, my stomach and weight on his arm facing out, legs flopped down and arms over his arm and then I’d become content. It was apparently the only solution for my discomfort. I see that in this picture, not the same pose but same comfort… I love that a picture I took might piece together a memory for Oliver later in life… and the fact that a current picture pieces even my own ‘memory’. There are days I still wish I could be slung over my dads arm…
My dad is my hero. He’s inspiring on so many levels… And I basically have to twist the understanding of inspiring here. I want to be just like him… he is my inspiration. It’s not just a quality. When I was younger I would eat raw potatoes with salt on them because he did. I would eat every bit of spicy food (though, nine times out of ten, I was disgusted with the lack of feeling my tongue felt after said foods) because that is how he loved things. I feel like early on I thought if I ate like him I would get to be just like him. Like maybe it was his affinity towards excessively uncomfortable foods that made everyone around him happy… that made him so carefree… that made people love him. I know now that no amount of hot sauce on my chicken would attract people and happiness the way my father did. I still can’t explain it. But if I were to give you one defining piece of amazing about my dad it would be his capacity for love….
I don’t know how he still has hair… or any resemblance of sanity having me as a child. Not that I was atrocious… but I tested my boundaries… In general, I pray for all fathers of daughters. The world is not simple… it is not easy… and as strong of a ‘woman’ I may be I still know that it is far more dangerous for a chick out there than a guy. Being male it is natural (or so I hear) to want to defend your woman (or daughter, mother, etc.)… but fatherhood seems to me a yet another cyclical battle of always questioning what is best. This is fatherhood but the line between definitions is thinner with daughters. Cyclical in trying to give her space vs. letting her fall… between letting her fall vs. helping her learn a lesson… helping her learn a lesson vs. saving her from danger… saving her from danger vs. protecting her life… and back to protecting her life vs. giving her space. I’m not saying my dad ever had the answer to these battles in any given moment … what dad really, truly does? But I know in those battles one thing remained constant… his love for me. And yea, one thinks, ‘What father doesn’t love his daughter?’ But sadly I think we all know blood doesn’t necessarily confirm love. Sure, love is grand but what seems extraordinary to me about my dad: he never led on that his love was something to be earned… it was constant. It would always be there. No matter what battle of the circle he teetered on, his love wasn’t weakened NOR strengthened in any given moment… maybe his pride… but his love could never be put on a scale from one to ten. His love for me (and my brother) was and still is one of his most prized possessions. Maybe to all parents it doesn’t seem that magical or extraordinary… but to me… it is inspiring. And it is important that I let him know I understand it now… I can see those moments when he had to let me learn my lesson or had to protect my life it wasn’t about the right or wrong lesson necessarily… or the physical or emotional protection… it was bigger… or maybe technically smaller… it was just love.
Though I know my dad would agree with this title quote… his frugal nature alone would favor the safe-ness of the words. But I must say that when you build a backbone from being loved by my dad… and from having bits of my dad in it… or even in weaker moments, him becoming a backbone… the wishbone doesn’t seem so much an extra. With my dad and his love behind me… my wishes and dreams just seem like they’re an extension of my backbone. This one-year anniversary… of my own business… of my pursuing my passion… of me owning my own future… of me understanding what I am capable of … is also just the beginning of the merging of my wishbone and my backbone.
You’ll always be my first love, Papa! xo xo. erika@erikaleighphotography.com.
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