Guess What? I Love You.

When I was about 9 years old, I made my way through a school gym toward a DJ. The plethora of colored lines that were melded into the rubbery flooring, usually so prominent for sporting events and gym classes, had faded in the dimmer lighting and shadows that accompany a school dance.

I was very aware of the corsage on my arm. It was made with a red rose that beautifully accompanied my red and black Christmas dress, and I wish now that I had loved it, but at the time I think I was embarrassed by it. It seemed so grown up, so formal.

Looking back, I wish I could grab my littler self by the shoulders, stare into her eyes, and say, “Your daddy bought that for you because it’s a fancy grownup thing to do. Isn’t that the sweetest thing?” I don’t know how many girls had corsages from their dads for the Daddy Daughter Dance, but I had one. My daddy bought me a rose.

While the other girls requested their Taylor Swift songs, I walked up to that DJ and asked him if he would play “Gonna Make You Sweat” for me and my dad. I'm sure I thought the name of the song was "Everybody Dance Now." I don’t know how long it took before the song played, but when it did, I know that my 6’2” dad danced with me. It wasn’t just to that song, though. We danced to all of the Taylor Swift, because I knew those songs as well as any of those other little girls. He showed me how, depending on how you count the beats, you can dance slowly or quickly to any song. We danced quickly to slow songs and slowly to quick songs. We danced with my feet on top of his and with me hugging him. I couldn’t wait to go the next year, and the next.

That was our night for just us. My mom and my dad love each other very much, but on Daddy Daughter Dance night, I was his gal. Mom would curl my hair and take pictures for us and send us on our way with hugs, smiling and telling us to have fun.

When I tell people that I have three older brothers, they often say things like, “That must have been hard. So many boys!” I usually tell them that it’s alright because I got a room to myself and nobody stole my clothes. I don’t often think to mention this: that when I went to that Daddy Daughter Dance in the middle school gym, I got to dance with my dad all night long, just me and him. The dads who spun by with their groups of daughters looked happy too, as did their girls. But I didn’t have to wait my turn for a dance with my dad.

There came a time when I began to think I was too old for those dances. I can’t remember when we stopped going; I don’t know if we made it up to eighth grade or if we stopped before seventh, even. One year, though, my dad and I talked about it. I don’t know who brought it up, but he knew how I felt. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, or that I was too cool for him.

Just . . . maybe I was too cool to go dance with him in a sparkly dress with all those little girls spinning in circles while their dads stood laughing near the punch bowls. It’s too bad, really, because that was probably finally at the age when I would have liked that corsage.

That could have been the end of it. We weren’t going to the Daddy Daughter Dance, so . . . well, so no more Daddy Daughter Time. But we weren’t gonna let that happen.

That year, we still went to our Daddy Daughter Dance. Instead of going to a school gym in February, though, we went to a river in about May. Instead of wearing a pretty dress and a matching tie, we wore shorts and t-shirts. And instead of buying me a corsage, my dad rented us two kayaks and their accompanying paddles.

That evening, we paddled our way up and down the river, taking turns rushing ahead of each other and bumping each other out of the way. We floated near one another and talked and laughed and smiled. Whether or not it’s true, I like to think that I remember the sky changing colors as the sun began to go down. I know that where we were, we passed by a Lutheran college campus that has a huge chapel, one that can be seen from the river.

When I was in that kayak on the river near my dad, I didn’t know that someday I would go to that school. I knew the university, of course; my dad had been a student there, and by the time we were floating past on that river, he had become a professor there. But I still didn’t know what I wanted to do; I was barely even a teenager, after all! Four or five years later, though, there I was, sitting in that chapel near my dad for the opening service of the year.

In my very first semester at that university, I had a class with my Dad. That’s not quite the same as going to a dance with him; it’s something that occurs every other day, and there are other people around. Plus, he gave a lot of homework.

Still, it felt special. I sat in the very front row. Sometimes I asked intelligent questions, and sometimes I made weird faces at him. It was a delicate balance that had to be upheld, of course, but I think I managed things alright.

I can imagine that some people may not enjoy having their parents as teachers, especially when they reach college. That’s our time to go off on our own and become individuals, right? I was used to being taught by my father, though. He had been the pastor of my home congregation for years before finally stepping down to focus on his responsibilities as a professor just before I got to college. It helped, too, that my dad is a fantastic teacher. I might be biased, but I will say that he was one of the best profs I have had at this school. I present this as factual evidence; other students told me they thought he was a great professor too. They, of course, would give me only their untainted opinions of my father, right? Right. Moving on.

That first year of college, I commuted back and forth to school with Dr. Dad. I ate lunch in his office almost every single day, unless some random student decided they just had to talk to him about an assignment or a personal problem. Those were also the sorts of things I talked with him about while we were eating, but sometimes other people, including my two brothers who were at the university at the time, decided they needed a turn to talk to Prof P.

The balance of professor/dad was best demonstrated when, one day, Dr. Dad was passing out slips of paper that had grades and explanations for a recently completed group project.

Several months before, on Father’s Day, I had bought my dad a card. The card made a joke about dads and their texting . . . skills, shall we say. On the outside of the card, there is a phone with a text conversation showing on its screen.

Child: Dad, I passed my class!

Dad: WTF!

Child: Dad, what do you think that means?

The inside of the card simply reads, “Wow, That’s Fantastic!”

My dad isn’t a swearer, and neither am I, but when I found that card in a CVS, I just stood in the aisle and laughed. I knew I had to buy it. When he opened it, I’m pretty sure he laughed until he wheezed.

Months later, when I flipped over the piece of paper with my grade on it, I saw the grade and the scoring of different categories. My partner and I had done very well. At the bottom, some comments were written in my dad’s somewhat indecipherable handwriting. I figured it out, though, as students before me have done for years. What I read about this project that I had turned in for my college class was, “In the Hallmark sense, WTF!”

I still have that scoresheet, and I don’t think I’ll ever throw it away. Nothing like a well-misused acronym for a great joke.

Recently, I’ve had to start taking acronyms more seriously. When I was in high school, I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Let me tell you, anxiety is not fun. It’s not fun even when you’ve been misdiagnosed and you don’t find out until six years later that what you really have is OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

That first year of college, in the spring semester, Coronavirus took over the world. It’s a good thing I was too old for those dances at this point, because there’s no way I would have been able to go. Instead, I Zoomed into my New Testament class upstairs or on the porch while Prof P./Dr. Dad zoomed in from the basement of the same house. It wasn’t just us; every member of our six-person family was home. We had to make sure everyone else was off the Wi-Fi during those class times so that the class could continue to run.

It was between two Zoom classes that my dad held my hand, hugged me, and repeatedly told me to breath as I experienced my first panic attack, at that time attributed to anxiety. He let me cry and talked me through it, even when he didn’t understand exactly what I was feeling.

My dad spent so much time listening to me talk about what was going on in my head. When I would apologize, say that I worried that I was giving him too much to worry about, he would tell me that listening was part of his job as a dad, and that it was a privilege for him to be able to do it.

Things have changed now. My dad lives far away from me. Like I said, he’s a very good teacher, and he ended getting a call to the Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis, where he teaches Old Testament and Biblical languages. (He tried to get me to take Greek while he still taught at my school. I think I just laughed at him in response.)

I was lucky with the timing of the call. I got to take every class that I would be able to take with him as a professor when I was a freshman, and he and my mom switched states the following year. (Alright, I guess I could have taken Greek with him, but see above comment about laughter.)

Still. Walking past the office that used to be his, peering through the little window and seeing a sticky note in his cramped handwriting stuck to the now empty bookshelf . . . well, that was enough to make me walk to the bathroom at the end of the hall and wipe away some tears before going to my next class.

Just because you’re far away though, Dad, doesn’t mean you mean any less to me. When I called you crying that one day, not long before I found out about my OCD, you talked with me even though we both knew that I was supposed to be in class. You were between classes too, I’m sure, but you made time.

Just because I don’t eat lunch with you every day or make up haikus about chocolate cake with you on the walk between the parking lot and your office doesn’t mean I don’t still love to see you laugh. When you gave mom those six individually wrapped bottles of her favorite hand soap this past Christmas, seeing you laugh so hard you could barely breathe and watching her laugh at you was maybe the best part of that entire break.

Just because I don’t call nearly enough unless I’m having problems doesn’t mean I don’t look forward to talking to you.

There’s been a Father’s Day Challenge on the Vocal website for weeks now. “We’ve all heard dad jokes,” they said. “Now let’s hear some dad stories.”

I haven’t written anything until today because I didn’t know what to say. What could I write that would be worthy of a $2,500 prize? I love you, yes. You’ve meant so much to me for years, of course. But . . . is that enough?

Today, though, I thought about the Daddy Daughter Dance. I don’t know why. And the rest just came. It doesn’t matter if this little history isn’t interesting to anyone else, although of course I hope it is. It doesn’t matter if I win a single cent (although if I do, you’ll be the first one I call). What matters is that, once I had this idea, I had to write it down. And then I couldn’t stop writing, because there is so much to say about you.

I’ve been writing for almost two hours now. At first, I was writing for the competition, but now I’m writing to you. I stopped twice; once to try to reassure someone that I was alright when they said that I looked upset while I was writing (I don’t think it worked, considering that I started inadvertently crying and explaining that I miss my dad), and once to go blow my nose after that encounter.

The point, Dad, is this.

Thank you for the corsage. Thank you for the evening of kayaking, for the reassurance, for the phone calls. Thanks for racing against Micah and me that one time while we were on a walk, and sorry about the resulting pulled muscle. Thank you for continuing a word game with me via email that started in 2015 with the word “poodle” (I promise I’ll play you back after I finish this story). Thank you for teaching me so much about Jesus, and for only teaching me the first 10 letters of the Greek alphabet. Thank you for the advice, for the hugs, for the love.

Thank you for naming me Abigail, which means “Joy of the Father” in Hebrew. Thank you for being my daddy.

I love you and I’ll never stop.