The Greatest Gift a Dad Can Give His Daughter
My father's fondest expressions of love flowed not from his words, but from his hands.
My father never had a real
home as a child. His mother died when he was five, his father never
remarried, and by the time he was eight he had lived in three different
countries.
Perhaps that’s why he liked building things so much: His
creations gave off a feeling of permanence. “A doctor makes a mistake
and outlives it,” he used to tell me. “A builder makes a mistake and it
outlives him.”
He was always tinkering. When he was six, a round-faced
Russian kid living in Turkey, he sawed the legs of the dining-room
table in half so he could sit at it more comfortably. He got punished
for that one, but he learned the value of tackling a problem with his
own hands.
By the time he was ten, living in Brooklyn, New York, he’d fashioned a
bicycle from discarded parts. He did the same in his 20s with a used
Packard. He worked on it night and day, his thick, callused hands gently
oiling and tuning the parts until the car cruised along as smoothly as
the rich boys’ jalopies.
My father is a practical man. He can’t explain calculus, but he can
tell you how much pressure a boiler needs. He can’t draw an architect’s
plan, but he can tell you if the pipes and wiring will sustain the
structure. He put himself through night school to become an engineer,
but that was only after he worked as a plumber, electrician and
mechanic.
Dad is proud of the buildings he’s put up over the years. To me, none
of these can match the little things he made just for me with his two
hands.
I was almost seven when my family bought a gambrel-roofed white
colonial in New Jersey. To my mother, the house was in move-in
condition. But Dad insisted he replace the heating system, insulate the
porch and put in new bathroom tile and plumbing.
By Christmas of that year, drop cloths still covered the floors, and
most of our furniture was in storage. Mom, determined to celebrate the
holidays in our new home, sent my father and me to buy decorations.
On our way, we walked by a toy store window. There in the corner was
the most unusual dollhouse I’d ever seen. It was shaped like an
upturned log. Little oval windows were cut into it, draped with calico
curtains and framed by tiny balconies.
“Oh, Daddy,” I said, “isn’t it beautiful? Do you think Santa Claus will bring it to me?”
My father looked at the $100 price tag—an exorbitant figure in those
days. “I think even Santa couldn’t afford this house,” he joked, hiking
up his belt as he often does when he’s nervous. “Maybe one day,
sweetheart.” Dad probably hoped I’d forget about the dollhouse, but I
drove my parents crazy talking about it.
On Christmas morning, I awoke early and raced downstairs. In the
faint light, I made out an assortment of wrapped boxes under the
tree—but none large enough to contain my dollhouse. Dad could see my
disappointment. He pulled me onto his lap, and gently told me how, as a
boy, he had wanted a red wagon, but his father couldn’t afford one.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I made my own from wood and old wheels I found,” he said. “You know
what? That wagon meant more to me than any store-bought wagon.”
“But I don’t know how to make a log house,” I said.
“Then we’ll make one together,” he assured me. And right after
Christmas, despite all the unfinished projects at home, we started in.
First, Dad cut leftover plyboard into strips and nailed them in a circle
on a wood base, showing me how to sand down the rough edges. Then he
sawed the base in half and attached hinges to one side so the “log”
would swing open and shut.
Night after night, Dad would come home from the job dead tired, yet
he’d always find time to work on the log house. He gathered scraps of
wallpaper, matching patterns as carefully as if he were doing my
mother’s kitchen. He streaked the exterior with shades of brown,
examining it from a distance to make sure he’d gotten the right effect.
Characteristically, he improved on the model. He even added a tiny path to the front door—crafted from real concrete.
In all, it took four months of hard work by my father. But that log
house was the greatest gift a child could ask for. Long after I gave up
playing with dolls, I would still occasionally bring it down from the
attic just to admire it and remember those months I watched Dad bring my
dream to life.
Years later, I went off to college in Illinois. I suddenly had to
rely on myself to change a light switch or glue together a broken vase.
At first I longed for Dad to be around. But as I became proficient at
small projects, I came to wonder how much I really needed him at all.
That March, when my parents drove out for a visit, I walked them
around the campus town, pointing out my favorite restaurants and stores.
I had an opinion on everything—in eight months, I had managed to
become so sophisticated.
We stopped in front of a shop window filled with hand-painted wooden
knickknacks. “That’s the Salzburg Shop,” I told them. “It has the most beautiful piece of furniture you have ever seen.”
Intrigued, they followed me inside. At the back of the store stood a
large oak armoire. Painted red hearts and flowers trailed down the
middle of each door; the large bottom drawer sprouted an elaborate
bouquet. My father studied the piece of furniture carefully. “I could
build a cabinet like this for you,” he ventured.
“Oh, Dad,” I said, “it’s not a ‘cabinet,’ it’s an armoire. Besides,
you couldn’t make anything like this. It’s a work of art.” Dad’s hands
dropped from the drawers he was examining. Silently, he closed the big
oak doors and stepped back, the way a teenage boy might from a
beautiful girl who has just declined a date. I knew I had offended him,
but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. By the time my parents left,
the incident seemed forgotten.
Three months later, my freshman year
over, I went home. Everything there was just as I’d left it, and yet
not quite. My parents had moved the Oriental rug from the living room to
the den. A new brass bowl of silk flowers decorated the dining-room
table.
I raced up to my room at the top of the stairs. And there, bathed in
the honey-colored afternoon light, stood an almost exact replica of the
Salzburg Shop’s armoire.
I say almost, because in many ways it was better. The front panels
and sides were made from scrap lumber, not oak, but the wood had been
rubbed so delicately with different shades of paint that it gave off the
patina of an antique. Painted flowers trailed up the doors, and they
led to little doves.
I turned to find Dad watching me hesitantly, hiking up his belt.
“Oh, Daddy,” I said. I hadn’t called him that since I was little. “It’s beautiful.”
He came over and put his arm around me. His knuckles bore the partially healed cuts and scrapes of many days of hard work.
“Your old dad’s good for something after all,” he said with a smile.
Then he eagerly opened the armoire to reveal the extras that always
make my father’s creations so special. Inside, he’d hidden a secret
drawer. “For your jewelry,” he explained. He also proudly revealed a
lever that could disconnect the large bottom drawer from the rest of the
piece. “So one day, when you leave, you can move it easily,” he said.
“Dad, I’m never going to leave you,” I said reflexively.
“But I expect you to,” he countered. “I can build a lot of things,
but I can’t build you a life. All I can do is help you to build your
own.”
My father doesn’t write me letters. And he doesn’t always remember
my birthday or wedding anniversary—or even how old I am sometimes.
But I need only look around me to be reminded of his love. He
restored a 100-year-old rocking chair after I told him how much I
wanted one. When I moved into my first apartment, he spent his weekends
in a crawl space replacing pipes. And when I lost a blue stone from a
favorite pair of earrings, he worked his magic with putty and a splotch
of paint.
The four greatest words I know are “Dad will build it.” He’s spent
his life creating, mending and improving the most valued parts of mine.
He’s given me the greatest treasure a father can give—a piece of
himself.
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