For B.D.L.

When we get old enough to marry and start our families we may think we have become adults but at some point we recognize that to our parents even many moons after we have made them grandparents, we remain children.



You know that you are more or less all grown up when your perceptions undergo a radical shift and you find yourself more concerned with the type of daughter you are than the type of father your dad is. There is a silent starting line that you cross where the daughtering begins in earnest and this allows for your father to become more of a friend and less of a parent while stiill remaining "Dad". The propriety parameters once so distinguishable, change into blurred shadows so that you are never again simply daughter and dad. Your relationship grows on so many levels that although you may look back and be lucky enough to say unequivocably that you had the best dad growing up, you know that what you recall is only one dimensional when compared to what you have had these past years. Who could have predicted that aside from your other half, you would be able to call your father your best friend? One day you will see that you will forever have this special bond and that neither absence nor time will ever be able to break it: when you do, you will finally know what your dad knows and has always known; he has the best daughter/friend.