Dad, you are two-dimensional — a cardboard figure in my mind. For too many years I have wondered why I did not feel close to you. Desperately, I write to know you loved me.

Dad and me at two years old in a Maryland snow

With thin scraps of memories, I collage a quiet, respectable man in a long winter coat and derby hat. Short but strong, stocky but not overweight — a wrestler and lifeguard in younger years.

Born in Utah, you were only six when your mother died. Your father took you and your younger brother all over the U.S. as he worked in different places. Sometimes you boys were left for long periods with an aunt in Kansas or at an orphanage in California.

War, Maryland and Mom

As a young man you tried to enlist when World War II broke out, but were rejected for your poor eyesight without glasses. You were working in Kansas City as an underwriter when you were drafted. Always good at fixing things, you were sent to Maryland for specialized training in radio and radar repair for bombers and fighter airplanes.

During training you joined a church young adults’ group. When the group had an outing to a Maryland beach, you met Mom, a curly-haired brunette from Ohio. She had won a typing competition and a job in Washington, D.C. She captured your heart, you always said, “when she rose up out of the water like a mermaid.” 

Letters between the two of you crisscrossed the ocean while you served in North Africa and Italy. One letter carried a momentous question. Another said, “Yes!” When your ship docked in Georgia, Mom was waiting, and you were married there soon after. You made your home in Maryland.

Ten years and a daughter and a son later, I was born: the surprise baby when you both were past 40. 

Books and camping

Some of my earliest memories are of family outings to Washington, D.C. On our way to a museum or concert, my place to walk was on the short concrete walls that often paralleled the sidewalk, holding your hand. 

When I was a little older, the two of us went to the library together nearly every Saturday, each of us coming home with an armful of books.

As a girl, I loved catching sight of the kiss you gave Mom in the kitchen every afternoon when you came home from work.

Mom and Dad made camping among our fondest memories for my sister Ginny, brother Terry and me

In the summers, our family went on long camping trips. I remember slippery hikes through sun-dappled forests by day, lantern-lit board games at the picnic table by night. In the mornings, the delicious smell of the bacon you were cooking wafted through the tent and roused us ravenous from our sleeping bags. 

One afternoon at home when I was 12 or 13, I plopped down next to you while you read the newspaper, leaning hard against your shoulder. I guess I felt sure I could disturb you. I was shocked when you snapped: “Give me some space.” 

I got up without a word and walked to the kitchen. I knew you didn’t mean anything by it, but my heart hurt from your rejection, Dad. Maybe that vulnerable time in my life was when the distance between us began to grow.

Music and jokes

For about five of my middle and high school years, every Thursday night you drove me around the Beltway 25 minutes each way for my piano lessons. This was after your 45-minute drive each way for your work in Washington.

When I played in piano recitals and sang in choir concerts, you and Mom were always there. I never forgot your advice after the first recital: “Don’t make a face when you make a mistake. No one will know!”

You got me a job at your office one high school summer. After work one day we stood with your co-workers in a parking garage, waiting for our cars. I cringed as you trotted out your time-worn jokes and puns, and your co-workers seemed to force a laugh. They had probably heard your jokes as often as I had. I was too embarrassed to just groan and shake my head.

I could have used more surveillance as a foolish teenager. But I was jealous of a friend whose father was always up and waiting to see if she was home by her curfew. You didn’t seem to care as much. Maybe (like me when I had teens) you were too selfish or tired to stay up and see if I came in at a reasonable hour. Maybe you trusted me.

When my high school singing group planned a choral tour of Europe, I badgered you and Mom for permission to go. Mom resisted my pleas, but you said, “Yes.” Thank you for this singular gift, Dad. 

You and Mom covered the costs of my private college degree. Only when I overheard you talking did I realize the challenge this was for you.

Coming to Christ

Mom’s family had been in the church for generations, but you were invited to church by neighbors as a young man. You professed your faith in Christ then. We were in church as a family every Sunday. I’m so grateful for the Scripture, doctrine and hymns I learned from an early age. 

But I only understood my deep need of a personal relationship with Christ in college. That’s when I gave my heart to Him, and my intellectual knowledge became a reality for me. I fell in love with God’s Word and discovered the intense peace and joy of a life fully surrendered to Him.

Two years later, you and Mom were dismayed when I heard God’s call to become a staff member of Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization unfamiliar to you. But soon you began supporting my missionary work in the Virgin Islands and later in Mexico, and my sister and brother-in-law in their missionary work in Papua New Guinea. 

Home briefly from my first assignment, I wept unexpectedly when a ballet came on TV. Perhaps I wept for the beauty of the dance, such a contrast to the poverty I had seen for the first time overseas. I sat next to you, wanting to cry on your shoulder. 

In the same spot on the same couch where you had pushed me away years before, you said kindly, “Go to your mother.” Mom was at the other end of the couch, and I’m sure you thought she could handle my emotions better than you could. But I stayed. I knew I wanted your comfort. This time, you put your arm around me.

A deeper talk

One winter, before I met and married Ed, you drove me to the airport to travel back to my assignment after Christmas. I told you I might be single the rest of my life, better able to serve the Lord than married. 

“Don’t you want to experience all of life?” you asked. It was a brief and the only deeper conversation I can remember having with you.

Dad, you didn’t know I needed to talk deeply about things, and neither did I. Maybe I was looking for the perfect father no man could be. Maybe we two perfectionists had trouble finding the relationship behind the corrections that were second nature to us.

Instant rapport: As we gathered in Maryland before our wedding, Dad and Ed’s Dad, Charles, discovered they had been at the same air bases in North Africa and Italy in World War II.

At the rehearsal dinner the night before our wedding, brother-in-law Dan gave Ed a shell necklace from Papua New Guinea to present to Dad as a “bride-price.”

With my Dad on Ed’s and my wedding day, September 21, 1986.

You and Mom came to visit me at every assignment, even — when you were in your seventies — halfway around the world to my home with Ed in the Philippines. Our firstborn, Stephen, was a strong magnet.

On our furloughs, we crammed into the small house I grew up in, in Maryland where you and Mom still lived. I loved watching you cut up with Stephen and his younger siblings, Elisa and Andrew.

The grandkids were delighted around Grandpa.

Finishing the collage

Now I wonder how I missed seeing you: a kind and faithful father who gave your kids the roots you never had. You were honest, friendly, and yes, funny — the prototype teller of silly, clean Dad jokes. (I forgive you.)

Once, you pushed me away when you needed some space. Maybe you were stressed. Maybe you were needing time alone to recharge — as I, also an introvert, often do. 

You were a family man, generous, disciplined, self-sacrificing. Thank you for making every effort to be with me wherever I was. You cared. You came. You did your best.

Sweet Mom and Dad. Their marriage lasted 52 years.

When Mom passed away at 83, you were 84. I was proud that you bought a computer and learned to use it, so you could keep in touch by video call with my brother, sister and me — all living far from you.

You began to fall frequently. On one of my last visits from the Philippines to your retirement home, I rigged a harness of sorts between us at night, hoping to steady you when you got up. But the harness failed, and you fell, again, before I could get there. Dad, you were my strong support when I was little — and though I didn’t realize it — in many ways throughout my life. I’m sorry I couldn’t support you when you needed me.

It wasn’t long after that, at age 93, that you went to heaven. You are whole there, free from sickness and falling, free from the childhood memories you wouldn’t talk about. 

When I see you again I will embrace you and thank you for being a true father. “You can tell each tree by its fruit,” Jesus said. Yes, contemplating your character and many demonstrations of love has dispelled the distance I felt for so many years. I am so happy to feel close to you again.

I see you now not as a cardboard figure, but as a whole, imperfect, loving, lovable Dad. Thank you for loving imperfect me. With the scraps of my collage in place, I see the familiar twinkle in your eye.

Like my heavenly Father in His daily interaction with me, you did not always say what I might have liked to hear. But you were wonderfully present. Your actions did speak louder than words. Thank you, Dad. I hear you better now.

P.S. I have felt closer to my heavenly Father since writing this letter to you. I’ve realized He, too, has a twinkle in His eye for me. You, Daddy, helped me catch sight of it. Thank you — so very much. 

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If you haven’t discovered life in Christ, don’t hesitate to check it out. Life is too short to miss His love and perfect plan for you. Read About “The Nearness of God” or see everyperson.com for more information. You can also read my story of coming to faith in Christ in: How My Song Began.