The love that is felt between a daughter and her father is something that is truly special. I had never experienced anything like it until July 6, 1999. That's when my baby girl was born and it happened to me.
I'm sure you can imagine the full range of excitement that is experienced, in a hospital waiting room, on the much anticipated day of arrival. The volume of emotions being felt are tiresome. The questions that run through your mind are near endless. Is she going to look like my side of the family or is she going to look like her mom's side? Will she be a holy terror or an heavenly delight? Will she be healthy? Do I have what it takes if she's not? By the time I was ready to start answering all of the questions and scenarios my mind had made for me it was too late. She was here. After the C-section I stayed with mom and they took her away to clean her up from her "ordeal".
I can remember it like it was yesterday. She was so tiny compared to my boys when they were born. The nurse brought her to the room in a little yellow dress we had bought her, it had the cutest little roses and bows on it. A rose on each sleeve and a little larger one in the middle. They had put covers over her hands so she wouldn't scratch her perfect little face. She was so sweet and didn't cry much those first few days. She was absolutely perfect. What had I done to deserve a beautiful angel like this? Well God knows I always get better than I have deserved. My children are a true testament to that.
We had decided to name her after my mother who had recently passed away about 9 months before. We found out we were pregnant just a few weeks after mom's funeral. I was so excited that we were going to have a girl. We had talked about how cute it would be to hear "little girl" laughter around the house. Oh the joys we would soon experience with our baby girl. Here she was, Antonia Faith Laureles, daddy's little girl. I wasn't sure what that meant all of these years. The time had come for me to get my lesson in history.
We had taken her little booties off to look at her hands. My sister noticed that her hands looked like my mom's hands. Alright! that's one for my side. At the same time I was sad because mom wasn't with us on such a joyous occasion. She would have been so proud of her new granddaughter. I could only imagine her rocking her to sleep and singing soft melodies to her namesake. As much as I would have loved for that to happen it wasn't the way it would go. I looked at her little hands and just like my sister had said, her fingers reminded me of my mom's hands.
Then it happened, without any warning whatsoever, my daughter wrapped her tiny little hand around my finger. At that moment two worlds collided and she was daddy's little girl. It was like something you would see in a Disney movie. One of the older ones, without all of the glitter of course. Just like that, she was mine and I was hers, and we both knew it.
Fast forward a couple of years to the time when daddy has to discipline his baby girl. With boys it wasn't that difficult. I say stop it and they stop it. I say sit down and be quiet and they sit down and are quiet. Girls are a little different than their counterparts. This was news to me. I knew girls were different from boys. I mean come on, but are they really that different? YES they are, and I didn't get this memo. It seems that with raising little girls, things had to be altered. Well I wasn't going to have any of that. She's just a girl right? I learned this about girls, they seem to have this thing called a heart. Don't get me wrong, boys definitely have a heart. My boys are true gentlemen under their rough exteriors. With girls though words from daddy can cut through them like a hot knife through butter.
Here is what was said "Faithy, stop it, you need to sit down and be quiet". What she heard was "Faithy I am disappointed in you and can't believe you are acting this way!". Did I really say that to her? There's no way she could have interpreted my disciplining as being hurtful could she? Uh yeah dad she could, and she did. She stopped what she was doing, turned around, looked up at me with big alligator tears welling up in her eyes and says the words I wasn't expecting "Daddy, you hurt my heart".
Wait a minute. What did she say? She's only 2 years old. How could she say something like that? I'm just doing my parental duty to discipline her. Why was this her response? How could she use such soft innocent words to show me what a horrible monster I was for correcting her? Why was I feeling like the bad guy? Why did her words burn through me to the core? Oh yeah that's right she's Daddy's Little Girl, I love you Faithy
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