Scenes from a life

My daughter graduated from the University of North Texas on Saturday. As I sat in the cramped seats of the Coliseum, the affectionately nicknamed “Super Pit,” I passed the time waiting for her to walk across the stage by viewing a slideshow in my head of scenes from my daughter and my life together.

Here are a few of the slides:

• Moments after she is thrust into my arms by nurses in the delivery room at Baylor Grapevine hospital, I look down at my daughter. To my shock, I see in that tiny scrunched-up face vestiges of my father, who died three years earlier. It is a joyous reminder of the continuity of life, the majesty of family and, perhaps, the power of imagination.

• After a dispute with her mother, my daughter, then 3, finds me and crawls into my lap, resting her head on my chest. Looking up, she says, “Oh, Dad!” It is a routine repeated many times over the years with only slight alterations and with the same result: She gets what she wants.

• In a routine that spans all her preschool years, I deliver my daughter to her various daycare centers. She lets me hold her hand as I walk her to her classroom and deliver her to her teachers. And each time, I wait, hoping as she walks away that she will give me a backward glance, an ever-so-brief acknowledgment of my role in her life. Most times, she does, and each time, it almost takes my breath away.

• Our nightly routine since she was very young is a story from Dad at bedtime. Desperate for a respite from the vapid plots of the Sweet Valley Twins series, I suggest to my second grader that perhaps we could try the current bestselling phenomenon known as Harry Potter. My daughter looks at me with an expression I’ll come to know well over the years and which implies that I am perhaps the dumbest person alive. “Dad,” she says firmly, “that’s a BOY’S book.”  I persist, and convince her to listen to the first chapter. If she doesn’t like it, we’ll find something else. The next night, I read the first chapter of “The Sorcerer’s Stone.” I close the book and look at the skeptical critic. “Well?” I say. She replies, “You know, I could listen to some more.” I will read the rest of the series to her, all except the last book, by which time she is convinced she is too old for bedtime stories and which she reads herself. I am secretly heartbroken.

• By age 12, it is clear that my daughter has my high-strung personality and shy, reticent nature. She is eager to please, fearful of rejection and loves to create. She is an inventive writer with a fertile imagination and a command of language. She is beautiful and, thankfully, does not look like me. But she is my daughter. More than once, my wife has walked in on a conversation between the two of us. She will listen for a while and then interject, with more than a hint of irritation, “You two are a strange couple of ducks, you know that?” My daughter’s typical, unruffled response: “Don’t worry Mom, Dad and I understand each other.”

• After some deliberation, my daughter joins the Southlake Carroll High marching band as a freshman. She’s not sure she will like it, but I am delighted at her decision. In a clique-obsessed high school like Carroll, marching band will give her a place in the school hierarchy and a group with which to identify. She will be surrounded by good kids and creatively inspired classmates. And lots of hard work to keep her busy and, perhaps, out of trouble. In her freshman year, she marches all the way to the State Football Championship in San Antonio. Over the years, she will learn to endure her father checking up on her, via binoculars, in the stands during football games and during the band’s intricate routines on the field.

• During her junior year in college, my daughter, now an English major, is home for the weekend. She wants to know if I have read a certain book she is currently studying. It turns out I have, and we have a long conversation about the book, its theme, our favorite characters and the like. That turns into a general conversation about literature, and I find, satisfyingly, that she is well-read, thoughtful and insightful. As she describes parts in her favorite books, her face lights up and her gestures become expansive. It occurs to me, for the first time, that she will be a great teacher.