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Standing Tall
By Rusty Ferguson, The Cleveland American
WINNING COLUMN - January 2003
I knew it was coming – but it always seemed so far in the distant future. How could it have snuck up on me the way it did? Why wasn’t I warned of the emotions involved?
My daughter just turned 16.
The driver’s license examiner just happened to be in town the very same day. She passed her test.
It got worse.
That evening as she unwrapped her gifts she was "wowed" by the assortment of facial makeup "thoughtful" family and friends picked out just for her. She’s been a natural beauty up ‘til now … do we really have to show her how to paint her face?
It got much worse.
As we prepared to cut the specially made birthday cake glowing with 16 candles, the doorbell rang. It was a boy – bearing a gift.
No, I hadn’t forgotten the "rule" I set forth as she .
entered her teen years … I was just ignoring it. No boys … no dates … until you’re 16, I told her. Now, the very day she hits the magic number not only does a boy appear at the door with a birthday balloon, but phone calls begin inquiring of her plans for the prom. I reminded her it is a junior/senior prom and she is a mere sophomore. Besides this is just January … the prom is months away. Was I searching for a way to get around the "16" rule?
It got worse yet.
The morning after -– a whole 16 years and one day – her three brothers decided it was now their big sisters job to take them to school. But, that has always been my job. Wait. This just isn’t fair. I put on my devoted dad grin, grabbed my video camera and watched through the viewfinder as she backed down the driveway, all four of them seemingly bouncing off the seats with big, broad smiles.
I turned to go inside and actually had to pause to keep my composure in check. Sixteen years,
where had they gone?
I went on to work and opened my office door and stared at a desk and wall full of memories. There she was, her life chronicled in photographs at every stage of her life. Each one more precious than the one before. Can that trend continue? Can the next short years to adulthood be anywhere nearly as wonderful as the first 16?
Of course they can. If I let them. It’s a thrill for dad to watch his only daughter blossom into a beautiful young lady. It’s also a tender heartache.
Maybe what bothers me the most is that 16 is so close to 18. Being a sophomore is so close to being a senior. Driving her brothers to school is so close to driving herself and her belongings to college. Having a boy call or come by is so close to having to permanently share the very life that made all my dreams come true when she entered the world 16 years ago.
What is obvious to me now is where the term |
