Restoring the face of dad

Flo Martin

I was sitting at the counter, quietly eating my breakfast, when I

heard the commotion. Little girls’ high voices screeching and

twittering as if they were having just a great time. I went out

through the breezeway to the back alley to see what was going on.

The twins were playing tennis with their dad.

These little girls are about 5, I think. They were all decked out

in their tennis skirts, denim baseball caps on backward and

rainbow-colored, oversized rackets. Everything matched, even their

puny little backhands.

Dad was tireless. He tossed ball after ball to each child and

raced to retrieve them. In the rare event that contact was made, the

ball popped softly off the racket, and Dad cheered his little

darling. The child got so excited, she did a funny little victory

dance flipping her limbs spastically this way and that.

I was howling with laughter. Visions of my own daughters danced in

my head. We, too, used to practice their forehands out by the garage,

where nothing could be broken when the ball careened wildly off their

rackets.

My heart was full and overflowed out my eyes.

What a wonderful time of life, when the children are small, and

how fortunate these two little sweeties are to have such a loving and

attentive daddy. How wonderful for Dad that he is comfortable enough

with his softer, feminine side to be so openly attentive and

affectionate with his daughters.

I, too, was a very lucky little girl. My own father was loving and

attentive.

He was my best friend for the first 10 years of my life. I was the

son he never had. We practiced baseball and tennis, ran races,

high-jumped and broad-jumped and rode bikes together. He made me a

pair of stilts and taught me to walk on them so that I’d have

something to keep me occupied, while he worked away at his bench in

the garage. He was always whistling, and I remember listening for

this sound around 5 o’clock in the afternoon and running up the block

to meet him as he walked home from work. Then, if he wasn’t too

tired, he’d go out and play with me.

The parts of myself that I discovered and developed with my dad

have held me in good stead ever since.

When I look in the mirror, it is his face I see.

Some years ago, I found an old picture of my dad. He was seated on

a round ottoman in front of a Venetian blind, and I was sitting on

his lap. It must have been shortly before he died, because I looked

about 9 or 10. I was very touched by this photograph, and since it

was in very poor condition, I took it to be restored.

The process of restoration, some years ago, was to meticulously

reproduce the photo by hand. They would reproduce one small section

at a time, and I would come in to approve it. Over and over we tried,

and although I could look at each feature individually and agree that

it was an accurate representation, when it all came together, the

whole did not look like him.

The picture of my dad that I carry in my mind is seen through the

eyes of my inner child. And what she sees and feels is an adoring

presence, with eyes so full of love that no restoration could

possibly capture it. In the end, I let it be. I did not complete the

project, and I paid the fees as agreed. It was worth it to me anyway.

The picture of my dad that I carry inside of me is real, even

though it cannot be seen by others. And as long as he lives in me,

reflected in the choices I make of men who are loving and good to me,

then he lives on indeed.

What I didn’t know then, and I do know now, is that I, too, gave

my dad a gift. It was not until I became a parent myself that I

understood this.

Being a father to me gave him the opportunity to re-parent

himself. Every time he hugged or kissed or held me when I cried, he

healed the little boy inside of him. And that was no small gift.

And so to all dads, on this Father’s Day and every day, know that

you are precious to your children. And know that they are precious to

you.

* FLO MARTIN is a Costa Mesa resident and retired high school

teacher, who lectures part-time at Cal State Fullerton in the Foreign

Language Education program and supervises student teachers in their

classrooms.