Fatherly Love

If anyone has taught me about love it was my father.

My father is not an extraordinary man on the outside; he could walk through a supermarket without extracting more than a glance. I assume he appears to be like any other father; a thinning hairline, emerging pot belly, smile lines beginning to show, and pictures of his kids in his wallet seated in the back pocket of his pants. The extraordinary bits are under his father façade, invisible to the human eye but clear as day to the abstract world.

Ever since I was little, my father has shown me how to love. He used to take me into our living room and set me on the coffee table. He would select the same CD from the rack every time, put it in the stereo, and skip to the one track that played the song “Butterfly Kisses” by Bob Carlisle. When the lyrics started playing, he would take my hands, put them around his neck, and we would sway back and forth to the music and he would sing to me. One time, I told him that I when I grew up, I would play this song at my wedding so we could dance for real and I could be like Belle in Beauty and the Beast. He said “Lexi, you go ahead and play any song that you like, but if you play this one, I will cry my eyes out.”

Believe it or not but this was the first time that I was even aware guys could cry. As I grow older, my father is there every step of the way teaching me more and more about boys and the many things that they are capable of. He comforts me when my relationships get tough and gives the best advice he can when applicable. I don’t know what I would do without my father because he is, and always will be, the first person to teach me how to love. (334)