Letters to Daddy

I, like most independent woman who live alone, check my mail infrequently. I do so mostly because I spend and live well beyond my means and do not like to meet or greet my day or evening with bills. It's too damn depressing... This morning I went to the mail box, sorted thru the bills, to find three netflix dvds and my birthday present from my dad. My dad has a birthday tradition. I receive annually a birthday card with a twenty dollar postal money order, in addition to an item I discussed in passing or what every daughter loves, cold hard cash. This year I was greeted with gifts that momentarily left me speechless with tears of joy.. Gifts that as I write this blog, I become misty.... He sent me two letters, letters that I'd written him when I was nine and ten. The delicately faded and worn envelopes and paper shook with the trembling of my hands as I fought back emotions to open and read each. One was a letter thanking him for a radio I received as a Christmas gift. The other discussing my family's move to a new house. I was not only precocious, but a little adult. The language I used for my age was, well, considering the time, well beyond my years.... I cried as I called him on the phone to thank him. He, smiled thru the phone and I could hear his personal acknowledgement that he'd gotten the response he was looking for.. Yet a bit surprised by his own emotion.. "Yes, KD, I've thrown away letters from old girl friends, ex-wives, army buddies, but I always kept yours. They have meant a lot to me. Believe or not I have more. I just don't want to give them all to you right now. I kind of knew you'd appreciate this." "Dad.. I do. Thanks. Now I know how you got all those women to fall for you and forgive you when you were messing up. You are considerably smooth." We both laugh.... "I love you Dad." "I love you, too KD."
I remember how I used to wait for my dad after every holiday. My great-grand demanded that he and my pops allowed us to have holidays together with her before we went our separate ways. I remember how I use to wait for him each summer, after the required month my sister and I spent together before embarking on our vacations with our dad and extended family. My dad would often cry when it was time to take me back home. I was the only connection he had to a woman who, to this day, causes his eyes to swell with tears, before he says, "...Well, uh, your momma had a way about her."
Daddy... I love you.. Thanks for making me feel like that little girl who knows that you will always be her hero..