Throughout my childhood, my father told stories— wonderful, marvelous, elaborate stories, and although they were bedtime stories they never put me to sleep. He told great adventure stories where he and his older brother Robert were the heroes who faced outrageous adversity against monsters, wild animals, and an occasional bully. How was I to know that Big Foot and the Swamp Monster were not real and certainly were not enemies my father had faced? It was only later that I saw these stories as a gateway into my father’s tumultuous childhood with his own father and their poverty as the villains.

It was not long before I outgrew these bedtime stories, but one thing I never have outgrown is spending time with my dad, talking to him, listening to his soft, deep voice, watching his hazel eyes dance with excitement and his legs jittering from nervous energy. One of the things that our ritual storytelling sessions established was an intense desire for closeness, for knowing one another in depth, and for sharing our lives in a way that only a few fortunate ones get to experience if they have a father like mine.

As a teenager, I soon learned how different my dad was from the fathers of my high school friends. Even if their parents were still married and their dad lived at home with them, many of my friends still experienced the pangs of an absentee dad. Whether it meant olives in a martini glass every night, or rude, degrading comments about one’s weight, or even complete emotional apathy, many of these fathers ignored the most essential need of a young girl’s heart: the time spent and the bond shared with a man who views her as precious, beautiful, and worthy of love. Without this essential relationship in their lives, some of my friends suffered from low self-esteem and an intense need to seek out male attention from any male, including any jerk who paid them attention, whether or not he degraded her self-image or body. But my daddy taught me something different about what a man is supposed to be and what love looks like.

Statistically speaking, my dad shouldn’t be the dad that he is: his dad was a violent drunk who beat my dad, his brother, and my grandmother regularly, and then died suddenly at 37, just in time, my dad said, before my dad and his brother were old enough to put a stop to their father’s violence either by killing him themselves or being killed by their own father. From my dad’s feelings of rejection and emotional scars, he emerged into a gentle, kind, non-violent man who never touched a drop of alcohol and never tolerated yelling in his house. I recall a screaming fight my brother and I had as teenagers and how we slammed our bedroom doors just to find our father taking our doors off the hinges as punishment for our violent outbursts. We learned quickly that there would be no slamming doors, screaming, or upheaval in our home. We also learned that our loving, gentle dad was a force to be reckoned with if we were to ever disrespect our mother. Even now he would put me in my place if I were to say a harsh word to her. And thus, the most important lesson that my dad has instilled in me is how he has loved my mom. She is precious to him in every way. My mother has scars all down her chest and stomach: She was born with holes in her heart and was one of the first fortunate patients who had open-heart surgery in Texas performed by Dr. Cooley. She was twelve and her parents had to borrow a car to get them to the Lone star state for the operation that would save my mother’s life. It was around this time that my dad, as a young teenage boy in desperation and pain, prayed for God to send him a wife he could love and prove that unlike his father, he could truly love a woman. And he has. My mom would tell you that today, even as she fixes his breakfast, irons his shirt, rides to work with him, and picks up his medicine at Wal-Mart. She’ll also tell you that she prayed for him too.

When I was in high school, some guy friends of mine saw a scarred woman on T.V. and were repulsed by her, saying they could never be with someone like that. I was greatly bothered and later told my dad about it, knowing that not only did my mom have the scar down her chest that saved her life, she also had the scar down her abdomen that saved my life and brought my brother and me into the world. My dad, with his loving eyes sensing the need I had for my mother to be beautiful to him, told me that he loved my mom so much and that over the years her scars became “normal” to him and a part of her beauty. He said that if he saw a woman on T.V. without scars on her stomach or above her neckline, she looked strange to him. And that was one of my first lessons about the eyes of love, of what real, pure love looks like. It taught me about how God looks at us: we have ugly, telling scars from our sin and the pain and baggage in our lives, yet He sees us with beauty, with unconditional love. So why does this love story between my parents matter or have anything to do with my dad being a wonderful father? It has everything to do with it. My dad gave me self-esteem as a young girl, showed me a picture of a loving, committed husband, and set the stage for me to look for a man with high standards, not just the first man who paid me the least bit of attention. Dad taught me how to be loved. And if you know my husband Josh, you know that my father succeeded in this lesson.

Now there might have been a time or two that I’ve forgotten or either ignored what my dad modeled for me. When I was seventeen, my dad scared off a boyfriend of mine and literally ran him out of my room and out of our house, never to return because my dad didn’t think the boy was best for his little girl. You can imagine the embarrassment and horror of a teenager in love with a guitar player in a backwards cap. But even then, even when everyone heard how “crazy” my dad was, I trusted him. I knew he had done it out of love to protect my innocence and to show me that I should hold myself to a higher standard. I could trust my father even then when I didn’t agree with what he did because I had spent time with my dad; I knew him and I knew he knew me. About a year ago, I ran into that boyfriend, and the first thing he asked was, “How’s your dad?” I know he didn’t appreciate being told to leave by a man holding a shotgun, but I think later he understood and even respected my dad in all his protective craziness. And honestly, that’s what every girl needs: her dad to be a little crazy and to scare the crap out of any guy whose intentions are less than honorable.

Now and throughout my childhood, my dad has been my hero in a way that I hope my husband comes to understand someday, perhaps if God gives him a daughter with big brown eyes looking up at him soaking up all of his love, he will understand how important a dad is to his daughter. But if you’ve ever had a dad like mine, you’ll understand when I say that my dad is the first love of my life. In the darkest moment of my life (and yes, I know I’ve only been on this planet a quarter of a century), my dad rode in on his big white horse although it was more like a Chevy and rescued me although I was more broken than the average princess after she gets rescued. All I had to do was call him, and when I said “Daddy,” he responded with “I’ll be right there.” He came, took my suitcase out of my hand, took me to the car and asked if I wanted him to go back inside and face the man who was leaving me. I knew he would do that for me, but I also knew that my dad could choke the life out of him, so I said “no, just take me home.” My parents protected me and prayed for me and held me while we waited under God’s merciful wing and said “His grace is sufficient, even in this.”

It’s weird how every Father’s Day makes you realize that time is marching on and that your father is getting older, and to borrow from a Stevie Nicks song: “I’m getting older too.” As a high school English teacher, I see so many kids who do not have dads around or who barely know their dads, and I see their pain and their scars. I wish more fathers would realize how important their role is in their children’s lives and how just a little bit of time could make all the difference in who their children become. And no amount of money or privilege or education can take the place of a good father. My dad is a man who has only loved one woman and still does after 32 years; whose back has hurt and bothered him for years, yet he always managed to throw the ball with my brother and me. He is a man who did not spend the time or money on hobbies like golf or fishing or cars, but opted to be home at five o’clock every day. He is a man who sang hymns loudly in church on Sundays in his smooth honey voice and taught us to love and walk with the Lord. He is a man that could not pay for all of mine and my brother’s college tuition, yet we always knew we could come home at any time and be welcomed to what my parents had. My father is a man who by telling me the stories of his life when I was a child inspired me to tell the story of a young woman whose father is the essence of her life.



Amanda Myers Thompson teaches English at Northeast High School. E-mail her at akatem82@yahoo.com.