Lost in Translation
Father’s Day weekend, now there’s a memory! I was supposed to have picked my daughter up that Saturday and just enjoy it doing whatever random thing caught my daughters attention. Instead I got a text earlier in the week informing me that this wasn’t going to be the case. I was livid instantly. There is no talking me out of that state of mind, only letting me punch my way through the thought process. I attempted to get more information as to why this was going to be the case with the only response being that of a runaround. This didn’t help much either in calming myself down. Neither did the text telling me that I could spend that Sunday with her. I’m not exactly sure why that bothered me as much as it did, but it did. Instead of spending Saturday with her, it would be the following day, Father’s Day.
It wasn’t until the next day that things finally were able to settle in and be fully understood. I was going to be spending Father’s Day with my daughter. I was excited when I realized this, but still for some reason, annoyed. It was all from the simple fact that I wasn’t told why my daughter wouldn’t be around for Saturday. When I picked her up, I realized the reasoning behind it, her older brother came up to visit. This was a nice surprise as I hadn’t seen him in a few months. It was a little hard for her to understand what was going on as she had only recently woke up from sleeping, but she was refusing to come with me. Though she eventually settled down after mom had put in a mindless cartoon in the portable DVD player.
The ride North was nice, minus the fact of the mindless video playing in the background. She enjoyed looking around now and then at the scenery as we drove by the farmers fields. She enjoyed spending some time at a friends house; running around outside for a while, and having a nice snack of apples. She gave me that look she gets when tired and started losing her coordination ability. It was then I knew we should leave and let her have her nap. I drove out to her grandmothers house, managing to awaken a pretty tired tot long enough for her to growl at me. She was quickly asleep on my chest almost as fast as I had sat in the recliner. It didn’t take long for me to join her in that state.
Slowly waking up is her game; eyes dotting around the room trying to figure out where she was. She knew the room, and that she was safe with daddy, but her ability to quickly put those together is still being developed. She realized she was at grandma’s house and once fully comfortable began bouncing around as though in the bouncing pen. She was an overly happy little girl, spending time with dad, on Father’s Day. It may not have meant all that much to her as to what day it was, but it was extra special to me.
By the time we got back to her mom’s house, that damn DVD had already finished playing and for that I was pleased. It meant I could talk with her now that I could keep her attention. I told her I loved her and that I enjoyed spending the day with her. When I asked her if she had fun too, she nodded her head yes with her eyes wide in the rear view mirror. I was handed an envelope by her oldest sister who informed me that everything inside was hand-written by my daughter. I said my goodbyes and then headed back North to my friends house. I hadn’t opened the envelope until having pulled into their driveway. There were two drawings and a picture of her inside.
Having nearly broken down with tears and hundreds of thoughts running through my head, I put the drawings and picture back inside the envelope and put them into my car’s glove box. While I have a few pictures of her and a poem in my apartment, I now have a more personalized touch with me every time I drive the 300 miles to see her.