Here's what I remember.
1.) Being little, around age 4. Going with Daddy to a many chambered, echo-y, concrete-floored, wholesale candy warehouse somewhere in Wichita, Kansas. Actually, I don't remember the going there. I just remember the being there. And only a few seconds of it at that.
For those few seconds, I was sitting atop a high counter near the cash register. There were chambers within chambers, pallets, boxes, ladders. I viewed that storehouse as vast, infinite even. Piled with exotic confections. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Outside, the summer day was blazing, but it was deeply chilling within this vast place. Daddy talked business. I watched and listened, small me in a big world, with my daddy, in awe.
2.) Sitting in the car outside the ramshackle, wood-planked, several-storied ice house. Daddy was ordering stock for the ice-box and concession stand at our swimming beach. And there I was, just gazing up . . . at a factory of ice -- on a pounding hot day. A wild impossibility come true. And Daddy taking care of business. Keeping us comfortabe. Sheltering us with all he had.
3.) Riding the roller-coaster at Joyland Park. I didn't want to go. But, I didn't want to be afraid of going. It was time to get on with it. Daddy went with me. He would have been in his mid-50's by then. And, I seriously doubt that he relished a roller-coaster ride. But, I guess he knew I would need him. When I went to pieces approaching the first horrid crest, he put his arm around me and gently said, "Go ahead and cry, Honey, if it helps." It did. I howled. And then we rode again.
This powerful man of the world was also in the tenderness business.
Is it any wonder that in the swelter of summer, I feel him near? That when I enjoy the singular sensory pleasure of sipping soda with shaved ice on a blistering day, or bite into a rapturously-sweet candy bar, or stoke up my courage to embark on something hugely adventuresome, something that seems way too big for me, I feel encircled by his golden-brown suntanned arm?
He worked so hard, worried so much, cared about us -- almost too deeply for his own human capacity to withstand. His powerful tenderness overwhelmed me. His sense of wonder fed me. His providing for us built within me a sense of shelter. And his compassion shaped me.
This man, my daddy, introduced me to spirit, to the marvels that wait just beneath the harsh crust of life, and to the most tender heart of compassion.
These are the things that last forever. These are the things I remember. About Daddy.
