Daughter

For full effect play this while reading:

To all the boys I've loved before... I'm watching "to all the boys I've loved before". Oh no... I'm not sitting next to Annie while she's watching "to all the boys I've loved before"... it's Saturday morning... my time... the girls are (were) sleeping. I made myself breakfast... really good breakfast... then I Netflixed and chilled alone (what?... it's a thing)... and I chose "to all the boys I've loved before"... it looked cute.... wait, what? Did I just say it looked cute... I.. I.. I meant to say funny... it looked funny.

Last night we went to Mamma Mia, not Mamma Mia 2, Here We Go Again at the movie theater... we did that over a month ago. We went to the live performance of Mamma Mia at the North Shore Music Theater. Not because I was dragged out to see it... because I secretly bought tickets then told Meg & Annie we're going to see it. And just like I do every time... I got teary eyed at any scene that involved the potential fathers and Sophie. While watching Mamma Mia 2, I got weepy at the Donna scene in the church, if you don't know what I mean then you'll need to go see it.

There are times I half expect to die too young, because of my kidney disease, and not see my little girl grow up and fall in love or maybe not but instead become someone who does things that make me so proud that the only possible expression of that pride is through tears. I hope that's never the case... the dying young I mean... not the proud dad thing.

What is it about a daughter that turns a man into a sack of goo, a weepy sentimentalist, and a watcher of Hughsesqueian teenage chick flick romcoms? I wasn't there for Amber's youth, so I never experienced this with her. Charly made me feel the emotions of pride for his achievements through those early years... the preschool drawings and father's day cards. The kindergarten performances.  The excitement in his eyes over things he never saw before. But I didn't turn into goo until Annie. Now I can get weepy at the silliest things. I have to keep tissues in my pocket in case.

I remember the first time Annie saw me get weepy at a movie... she was only about  four or five years old. She asked me what was wrong? I told her the movie made me sad. She came in close as if to hug me with her whole little body, she stroked my cheek as she looked me in the eye and said "oh daddy, it's okay, don't be sad, it's just a movie." Then she followed that up with the best hug I think she ever gave me.

Play this for full effect while reading this part

Then she was in that play where she was a mother mouse who had lost her son, and there's this song playing, you probably know it or at least heard it once or twice if not several dozens of times. Rise Up,by Andra Day. And there's that part where she's not singing words, but that kind of ghostly wooing between the words "and I rise up". Annie's character along with another mother mouse are calling out for their missing sons during that wooing and it just kills me... even thinking about it... I'm a wreck. This is something only a daughter can do to her father.

It probably helps that she's so sensitive. She used to cry when she was so happy that she didn't know what else to do. These days it's a rare occurrence, probably because she's so much more aware of the cynicism of the world we live in and worries about how she might be seen by others. But oh when her heart breaks the only thing that matters is her mothers arms while she cries so hard you can't understand a word she says.

Anyway... I'm a better man for Annie in my life, even if she's turned me into a weepy sack of goo.