Families without fathers...

I was out to dinner this weekend with my best friend and one of her friends that I also know because I used to work with her. But along on this "date" she brought her father. Not the man that helped contribute to her birth but her father, her daddy. In every sense of the word. Their relationship just flowed so naturally and so easily and I was SO jealous. You know simple things that aren't so simple when you really look at the delicacy of the issue. At first I was amazed that her mother and father were still together, let along married. But their relationship was one filled with pure love and emotion. For me it's rare to see "complete" families, and seeing her with her father made me want mines that much more. And it wasn't anything "special" that happened on this visit, just to watch their normal interaction, was simply amazing.
I want that, that something, with my father. But he's not that type of person, not at all. This man can't even remember the names of my children, my birthday, my sister's birthday. He's not a father at all.

And to all fathers out there, if you have a daughter, you have no idea how important the things you say and do are to her. You have no idea how the way that you treat her will shape her life, her future relationships and what she expects of men. And I have a dad of course he's human, some good, some bad. But I will tell you this:
There is almost nothing that will break a girl's heart like her dad forgetting her birthday. I don't care if she is 12 or 22. If you don't call your daughter and send her a card on her birthday, it will break her fragile feminine heart. At least call. And please don't try to guess the right ago with so much uncertainty in your voice. She may never tell you. Instead, she'll cry quietly alone. She won't bring it up until her mother asks if you've called, and then, her silence and the catch in her throat will give it away. Maybe it has happened so many times that her mother is tired of calling you to tell you how you've hurt your daughter.
Even if you do call, a day late, two days late, it is just that, late. Too late. You won't be able to change how you've hurt her. You won't be able to take away the feeling of sadness that her own father didn't call on her birthday, just didn't care. It won't matter that her mother, her aunt and her sister all called and made a big deal of it. It won't matter that she got a few email cards and went out for dinner and had ice cream with a candle in it. Because what she will remember about that day is that her dad forgot and didn't call. Her dad, the one she wants to be proud of her, forgot all about her. And by the time she is 22, even though you have forgotten more than once, she still hopes you remember. She still wishes that you'd call. She still wants you to think she's pretty, to be proud of her, to adore her. To love her enough to call.
And when you don't, when you don't tell her those things, you'll have no idea how much it hurts her. No idea until you read some random girl's blog whose dad forgot her birthday. Maybe then you'll remember. Maybe it'll stick with you. Maybe you'll tell your daughter that you love her the next time that you talk to her.