For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to write a book. Although I am a terrible speller and not a particularly skilled storyteller, the idea of seeing my own words on bound paper has always been very appealing to me. I had no clue, however, of what to write about. Years passed as I daydreamed about becoming an author and suddenly I was thirty-eight years old and still without even a short story to show for my writing ambition.
One day while at work I had a conversation about my relationship with my then eight-year-old daughter, Meagan, my only child. A divorced dad with joint custody privileges, my daughter lived with me for two weeks at a time during each month. This on-again off-again visitation schedule at times created challenges for me, both at work and in my personal life. Yet, it also gave me a wonderful opportunity to be very involved in my daughter’s day to day activities. I organized my schedule around hers during the time she spent with me, skipping lunch in order to leave work early enough to pick her up from school and hosting slumber parties on our weekends together.
During that workplace conversation I was asked if I truly enjoyed the rewards of parenting, or were they overshadowed by the challenges I faced, a single dad raising a young daughter. I answered quickly and adamantly – the rewards were endless and worth any challenge or lost opportunity I had to deal with. For the remainder of that afternoon my thoughts were filled with one reason after another about why I would rather, and without hesitation, compromise my career and single lifestyle than my relationship with my beloved little girl.
A lifelong note-taker and list-maker, I sat down when I arrived home that evening and in short order wrote out a list of reasons why I thought Meagan needed me; indeed a list of why I also needed her. I ended up with one-hundred reasons.
That list was originally like so many others I had written before, an attempt to get thoughts on paper before they were forgotten. When I finished the list I read it over – once, twice, and then many times. Suddenly I saw my written words were perhaps more than a simple list – they were a tribute to our relationship, a reassurance to my child that her father will always love her, passionately and unconditionally, no matter what.
It was also, quite frankly, a tangible reminder to myself of the things I thought I should do for her, as well as the things I knew, and hoped, not to ever do as one of her parents.
When it occurred to me that I had read the list over a dozen times before putting it down, the idea for my first book was finally born.
Today when I ponder my relationship with my daughter and now also my step-daughter, Linley, wondering how best to handle or what to think of this or that situation, I often turn to the email and letters I’ve received from dads and daughters of all walks of life who wanted to tell me about their own relationships. Over the years I have heard from daughters who heaped praise on their dads and dads who told me of their hopes and dreams for their daughters.
It occurred to me on one occasion while reading these stories that perhaps with the advice and insight I’ve found in them, I could help other dads and daughters better understand their own father-daughter relationship. With that, the plans for Daddy’s Little Girl began to materialize.
I corresponded with my readers, asking them to elaborate on stories they had shared with me, and tell me new ones. I wanted to hear what dads and daughters had learned from each other, how their relationship had changed over time, what challenges they faces and how they dealt with them, and their recall of favorite memories and special moments.
I eventually received nearly four-hundred stories; stories that not only continued to teach me a thing or two, but which reassured me there are plenty of dads and daughters who want to celebrate their relationship by sharing it with an eager and appreciative audience. I received funny and heartwarming stories about birthdays, daddy-daughter dates, emergency room visits, graduations, weddings, late night chats in the dark and so much more.
As I read these stories, I began to notice a few common threads running through them: fathers and daughters have a tremendous capacity to love each other no matter how challenged their relationship might have been at one time or another. Furthermore, I realized no father ever thinks his daughter is too old to call on him for help of any kind, just as eventually every daughter realizes she, no matter what her age, will always be her daddy’s little girl.
