My mother paid for the largest bouquet of flowers in my colors, turquoise and aqua, when we’d put the down payment on them in the early summer months. The florist made a mistake, however, and sent the smallest bouquet, to my mother’s disdain. Nevertheless, it didn’t matter at that moment because as I stood at the end of the aisle, one hundred of our friends and family gathered in the church of my youth, the flowers shook just as badly as if they were the oversized bridezilla bouquet.
“Are you ready, Missy?” my father asked, his arm steady and stoic as he stood beside me.
These were not the tearful last words of advice most fathers in movies or television say to their daughters. However, they were the words that told me he was emotional but happy for me.
Let’s be clear: Missy is not my name. But it’s the closest to a term of endearment my dad ever gets. His moniker of endearment fluctuates between Missy and, when I was really young, Baby Jane. Neither of which make one oodle of sense or have any semblance of a backstory. Still, in those words, I knew my dad wanted what was best for me and was nervous, too. Not that he’d ever let his hands shake like mine were. Not that he’d ever admit it.
But in his words, Are you ready?, he was, in his own way, pumping me up for one of life’s momentous times and letting me know that we had it. He was letting me know he wouldn’t let me fall.
My shaking flowers slowly and awkwardly made their way down the aisle towards the man at the end, the man whom I had met when we were still kids sitting across from each other at the art table in junior high. My dad led me toward him, and for a moment, I was suspended in time and in space between the two men who had been pillars in my life in very different ways.
The old adage says that you either marry the man who is exactly like your father—or the exact opposite, suggesting there is no in between. For me, my option was definitely the latter.
My father is a no-nonsense, Mr. Fix it kind of man who prides himself on mechanical knowledge, always having cash in his pocket, and his steady dose of realism he sprinkles about the family. My husband is a silly free-spirit who often sends me outdated memes of the Fancy Feast cat while laughing like a twelve-year-old. He often needs assistance picking the correct light bulbs to replace in our home that is riddled with enough incomplete maintenance tasks to make my father’s eye twitch in his sleep. My husband sprinkles doses of sometimes punch-worthy optimism wherever he goes. They could not be more dislike.
And you know what? I’ve realized that’s okay. That’s more than okay.
But on that day as I walked towards the man who was my father’s polar opposite, I didn’t quite realize the truth yet. It was only later that I would come to appreciate the value of both men in my life and to come to the significant realization that prompted this article: It was good I was marrying my dad’s opposite—because, despite my lifetime of trying to deny it, my father and I were and still are more similar than different in more ways than I can count.
I can actually hear my teenage self gasping and trying to bitch slap me at that last statement.
Growing up, I convinced myself my father and I were nothing alike. His cold hard facts in my face at the worst times, especially during the hormonal, rocky times of adolescence, made me want to repulse every aspect of himself I saw in my own blood. I would be nothing like his self-proclaimed realistic nature. I was a dreamer. I would stay positive, optimistic, and happy.
But even on my wedding day, as my dad gave me away to the other important man in my life, I think I knew the truth deep under the layer of white lace and too many beads. And I especially realized it as, misty eyed during the father-daughter dance that night, my dad leaned in and whispered the closest thing to I love you that he said.
“Good luck, Missy.”
We live three miles away. He knew he’d be seeing probably more of me than he wanted, along with the new meme-bearing son he never necessarily wanted. Still, in those words, I knew he was sending me off to fly into the life he had prepared me for with his harsh truths and axioms.
And, with those words, he knew I was going to succeed. He had prepared me well. He had prepared me in a way that marrying a man who was his opposite would not only be fine—it would be a success.
Because my father and I both knew something that day as my husband carried me off to our new life together—the lessons my father had taught me up until that point were as much an engrained part of me as everything else in my stubborn, independent personality my dad had helped forge. He knew that no matter what craziness life threw at me, I’d be lucky in it—because I’d be prepared.
Often in life, the people who challenge us the most, who sometimes push us to our breaking points emotionally—they are the ones who best prepare us to step onto the aisle to our real life, the one we’re meant to live. More often than not, too, it takes a big life event for us to step back and realize these people for who they are. For some of us it’s a move, a wedding, or a baby. For some of us it might take a tragedy or a loss or a mid-life crisis for us to realize who has shaped us, for better or worse.
It took me moving out and starting my own life in the adult world to recognize that through all the tears, the angry words, the criticisms, and the sometimes unfair rulings, my father’s tough love attitude helped shape me for the journey I started that day. It is because my father was hard on me and toughened me up that he allowed me to become the woman I am. He helped me, or maybe even pushed me, into being the somewhat sassy, overly worried, ridiculous overplanner I am.
So frequently, we think about role models and the influences in our lives as being these big rays of sunshine who tirelessly cheer us on, selflessly shower us in accolades, and unwaveringly tell us that life is beautiful. However, I’m here to say that this isn’t always the case.
In my situation, it was my self-proclaimed realist of a father—also known as Mr. Negativity by me sometimes—who taught me the most about myself and about not only surviving life but finding happiness in it. It seems like a paradox, I know. But for me, my often-pessimistic father helped me find the joy in life because he prepared me to deal with the sorrows and plan for the worst, along with many other things.
I challenge you to think about all the people who have influenced you, even the ones you sometimes push aside because they are too different, too negative, or whatever the “too” might be for you. I challenge you to look for your tough love figures in your life and look at what they brought out in you, good or bad. Most of all, I challenge you to accept that sometimes the ones in our lives who are the toughest on us have the best intentions, truly.
This is not to say you should ever accept abuse or mistreatment. My father is of a tough-love variety, but that doesn’t equate to abuse. My father is a stern man from a time when emotions were for wimps, when fuzzy accolades didn’t belong in parenting, and when you only got a trophy when you earned it, not when you participated. My father, let me be clear, provided for me in every way possible. He provided a safe environment with love and trust—he just provided the love part in ways modern generations would probably view as non-existent.
Every child, every person deserves love and respect. I’m just here to say that sometimes love and respect look differently, especially to other generations. Most of all, I’m here to say that love and respect don’t always come wrapped up with a bow of compliments, hugs, and “there, there dears.” Sometimes the bow is scratchy twine laced with the barbed wire edges of reality—and that barbed wire bow is often what we later recognize as what helped us better prepare for the beautiful gift waiting for us inside.
Love comes in so many forms.
For me, love from my father came in the lessons he taught me—sometimes harsh, sometimes grating, but always true.
And it is in that honesty that his love truly does shine, even today.
