Daddy's little girl

I am sitting in my office, working, when the phone all of a sudden starts to ring. It’s got this troubled quality about it and I know I am letting my imagination run wild but something is making me nervous.

It’s one of those phone calls you never want to receive. I know it is. Must be something that’s wired up in all parents but if you’re a mom or a dad, you’ll understand. What ever it is, I am already dreading it.

I pick up the receiver and almost tentatively answer. It’s my daughter, my first born. And her voice is broken.

“Dad! My boyfriend and I have just broken up…” And just like that, her voice disappears into the recesses of her pain, where I know, I cannot go.

And as I sit there, witnessing the ravages of her silent pain, my heart is flooded with the aftermath of what she had just told me. At least there’s been no accident. No one is hurt. Or worse…

And I regain some sort of composure. But just like that, just as I have dodged one wave and I think I can relax, the next one comes crashing into me, and then the next. My child is hurt.

It’s like the beach games we used to play when she was a child, diving into the oncoming wave and emerging on the other side, laughing. Getting ourselves ready for the next one… Only this time she is not laughing, and this is not a game.

This time, my child is hurt and what possible words of wisdom can I have for her? What can I tell her? If I had one brilliant “after break up advice” what would it be and as my mind searches, I know there is none.

So I tell her I love her.

And I wait. And as I listen to her silence I remember something Elizabeth Nolan once said:

“You’re my first born child, and the person who first showed me the miracle of this love a mother has for her child. “

Only I am the father, and I can feel her words as acutely as any mom.

And at first there is nothing, only silence from my daughter. The silence of a brave young woman who is doing all she can not to break down and I tell her…

“It’s ok baby. I am here..”

And just like that she opens herself up, releases her tears, and as she lets her pain out, waves after waves, all of a sudden it is as if her pain is mine. I don’t know how but if you’re a mom or a dad, you’ll understand.

And as I repeat the only words of wisdom I can come up with, I realize that today is not the day for any “after break up" advice. Today is the day of pain, of unfulfilled promises… Of dreams shattered and broken hearts. Today is the day where I cannot interfere with that pain.

So I tell her again that I love her.

And because I have been there, her pain is like a sculpture that I can touch, morphing itself from one thing to another, at once beautiful and frightening.

Heart breaks are painful as hell. They can burn and consume until all there is left, tucked away behind our fears is the little voice that we all have, willing us to get up and start again.

I have got to help her find that voice, I tell myself.

But not yet…

So I tell her again that I love her.