My Big Dad

This is my amazing Dad, Richard. Dad. Rick. Rich. Rex. Hey Yeardye.

He’s my rock. He’s my shove into the big blue ocean, if I’m being wiggly for too long on the shore. He’s the wrangler of my many a yard sale, when I didn’t make the gap. He’ll laugh, hand me back my teeth, and stand there until I am laughing too. He’s the first one to buy me a beer when I win. He’s my friend.

I am one lucky daughter to have been raised by this incredible man.

When thinking of this week’s discussion topic, I of course went through the long list of why my Dad is important to me, how he helped me become the woman that I am, but it didn’t take long for me to start noticing how he has helped other ‘kids” too – not just my brother and I. He has been, and still is, a true leader and mentor for a very particular type of person. The leaders. The innovators. The ambitious. We are not the type that is afraid of failure; failure is part of the game, recon. How do we become better at what we are doing? How do we have and be more of what we want? We have instead, that odd fear of success. Stage fright. We lack the ability to be wholly recognised for the amazing things we are innately driven to achieve. It’s like in that moment of success, we shoot out of our bodies and say “is that me?”

That’s when you realise he has been standing beside you the whole time. That’s when he gives you the shove and says: “Yes. That’s you. Catch up.” The most amazing part of that experience is that he is literally pushing you ahead of HIM. That’s the rare part about it. The leader and mentor who will push you to be better than himself. Your success is his success, his joy.

And finally, when you come to the next wiggly spot, he appears again. While you were working hard at achieving the next level in your own life, he has anticipated what you will need to know or have next, and he hands it to you. He’s already there. He learned what he needed to do next to support you.

By all this I mean ME. When I come to the next wiggly spot, he is already there. Unless of course you have been one of his “kids” along the way. Older, younger, equal in size, he will do the same for all of us, when we need that very particular shove to be our spectacular best. I always wonder why he’s able to do that. Lots there. We will all have our own answers about the why; we will see ourselves.

My big Dad.