"Every time we do these weddings,mom, I see the father-daughter dances, and...I just..I can't help but think I'm never going to get to do that."
Daphne (Amanda Bynes) comes to know her distant father (Colin Firth) in the movie What a Girl Wants.
I was watching a dear friend dance the traditional father-daughter at her wedding when this quote from the character Daphne in the film What a Girl Wants raced through my mind. I know I'm not alone when I say I don't have a father--don't get me wrong, someone contributed some DNA to me, but that does not a father make. My mother has been my only parent for much of my life because that someone cared only about himself. Sadly, I don't get a fairytale ending like Daphne--I got to know the person I would call "father," and I want nothing to do with him nor anything from him. Sometimes life happens that way, and you have to move on. The only father I would be celebrating today passed away a year or so ago--my grandpa. He was a kind-hearted human being who always made me smile and who I loved to dance with as he sang some old show-tune. I miss him still. May he rest in peace.
Day-to-day, the absence doesn't hurt so much. But when I'm at a family event or it's my birthday or when I used to have school functions--anytime I see images of functionalist "normalcy" paraded in front of me to remind me my family life isn't perfect, it hurts. On father's day, it hurts a lot. And even though I don't plan on getting married--even though I'm happy for my friend--it hurts to watch that father-daughter dance. But I know I'm not the only girl today who feels that way, so if anyone else happens to cry into their pillow at times like this, just know you aren't alone. And that "father" (like "mother") is a status you assign someone who has performed the duties of a parent, not a status instantly achieved biologically. Families come in all different shapes and sizes and so do father figures.
So to those people in our lives who have earned the title "father," and whom we are happy to celebrate with (and dance with), Happy Father's Day.
