My dad

I'm a daddy's girl.

My dad is 73. I'm 39

He still treats me like I'm 16, and even though it frustrates me to the ends of the world, we're both facing his mortality, despite the fact that he's healthy, whole and still works around the house like he's the one about to turn 40.

Recently while I reorganizing my bedroom, I came across my overflowing coin collection. Half of it was in a piggy bank I'd made in grade school, the rest in a tin container. I knew my dad's collection was spread across drawers, boxes and bags. I also knew it was time to find a way to store our coins properly.

Off to Amazon I went and in the span of 2 weeks, I'd bought 7 coins books, 5 of them are in my dad's possession.

The first week we spent together, going through coins, figuring out what we wanted in which book. I quickly found out that we had very different collection tastes. I'm focused on the special Tail coins, not so much the dates and who was on the Head, while that was all my dad focused on. When my books were filled the way I wanted. One book completely filled with special quarters, the other full of dimes, nickles, loonies and twonies (Did I mention I'm Canadian?) and international coins. I started to help my dad; I could see the dates better than him.

For the next month he'd asked me constantly if I needed this or that coin, despite the fact I was done my books and the answer was mostly no. I did look first, just in case. He did find a number of international coins in his collection, and an old TTC Token (that's the subway in Toronto). I laughed each time he grabbed my normal coin banks (he had permission), and asked to see the change from that weeks grocery shopping.

Watching my dad pour over his coins, I found myself sitting back and the feeling of nostalgia wash over me. When was the last time, I'd actually spent time with my dad like this? I couldn't recall; was it my teens? My 20's? Yes, my 20's because he taught me to drive, and had me getting on and off the highway to the point of exhaustion from the stress, preparing for my full drivers license. Which this brought back memories of so many times with my dad.

Teaching moments.

“Sweetie, come here. Take this hammer, and try to hit that nail.”

“To turn the mower on, you gotta pull this cord as hard as you can, without wrenching your shoulder.”

“With the BBQ, you turn these nobs to full, get the lighter to light the fire and then turn the nobs down – kind of like the stove.”

“Honey, you wanna learn how to shoot a rifle?”

“Valarie, come here and watch how this works.”

He taught me how to use power tools, how to mud drywall, garden, fish; he taught me how to cook and flip an egg!

He taught me how a woman should be treated. Arguments didn't mean the end of a relationship. Hard work is everything. Dreams are important. You take care of your family the best you can. If a man says something upsetting in anger, he doesn't always mean it.

My dad's temper, is wholly outmatched by his sense of humour. Its the one thing that will forever stick with me.

The first 'pranks' he ever pulled with me, was whenever I took a bath, he'd dump a cup of cold water on my back. That stopped before I was 10.

He'd make jokes, make up parody songs on the fly. Tickle and give me butterfly kisses.

When I was an adult, the jokes never stopped, they just changed. Sometimes they were sexual, equating a cooked hotdog to a certain male body part – but who hasn't made that joke? Some were sorta dark, and he'd definitely perfected his Dad Joke routine by that point and the parody songs never stopped.

Even to this day, my old man still surprises me. In the last 5 years, he's said things I was never expecting to come out of his mouth.

“Valarie, if a man ever tries to make you do something you don't wanna do, you have full right to just kick him in the balls.”

I think he and mom had been watching reruns Law & Order: SVU.

Another time we were sitting at the dinner table, and just out of nowhere he goes:

“Sweetie, I want you to know, if you choose to bring a girl home. I'll still love you.”

For the record, I am straight, but I'm demisexual. Dating and partner finding is difficult.

I know he worries about me. My life hasn't gone the way either of us would have wanted. But I am trying to make the best of the lot I got in life. But he's there for me, he supports me the best way he knows how. He gets angry and yells, we butt heads a lot (does it matter he's a Libra and I'm a Scorpio?), but he loves me and I'll be an utter mess when the unstoppable happens. I just hope he stays until after 100 just out of stubbornness and because he's an Old Mountain Man.

The man is my hero, and I hope that one day I'll make him proud.