Horizons

A girl learns some life lessons from her father

I remember driving home with my dad one late night from my grandparent’s house. I was very young, only eight or nine. I don’t remember where my mother or my brother was, but in my memory, I didn’t care. It was just me and my dad, and times like this were rare.

               I remember looking out my window at the stars and sleepily counting them. There were so many, more then I had ever seen. I tried to pinpoint different constellations that my dad had shown me.

               My dad was silent. Pensive, even. He looked over at me and I met his gaze. A sad smile swept over his face. I smiled back, tentatively. Abruptly, I felt the car slow down and I watched my dad turn the steering wheel in a slight way, pulling over into the dirt on the side of the road. My small smile turned to a questioning look.

               “You won’t find a better view of the stars, kid,” he told me with a wink. He unbuckled his seatbelt, and then leaned over to unbuckle mine. I don’t want to disappoint him, so I quickly opened up the car door and jumped out.

               It’s cold outside. My breath formed white clouds in the air and I shivered down to my toes. But my dad is my hero, and once again he saved me by wrapping me up in the big wool blanket we would keep in our trunk. I immediately feel warmer.

               We stood there in silence, gazing at the stars together when I noticed that my dad was no longer looking at the stars. He’s looking towards the horizon.

               “Daddy?” I asked, my small voice making its way through the cold. But he barely heard me, too lost in his own thoughts.

               “Have you ever wondered what it would be like just too drop everything and walk into the horizon?”

               “What do you mean?” I asked, intrigued now.

               “Just one day, let everything go and walk, never stopping,” his voice sounded far away like he forgot where he was. “I often dream of doing just that.”

 

               As I remember it, I wonder. Why not? I’m older now. Much older than on that day, and I would not be my father’s daughter if I could pretend that I never understood what he meant. I did not understand then. I do now.

               And more then I feel the need to escape; I feel the need for my dad’s escape from this prison even stronger. He never deserved this, this cruel unleashing of the fates. My sweet, mild-tempered father who I had never seen raise his voice or say a cruel thing. My dad who spent months away as the military called him from one godforsaken side of the planet to the other. The one, who, upon leaving to said parts of the world, always carried a stuffed dog in his bag, my stuffed dog, so that he was taking with him a little part of me.  

               Does he still feel that need to walk away from everything, even now? How could he not?

               So I ask him.

               “Why not escape? Why not leave her after what she has done to you?” I say this with tears burning my throat.

               He stops what he was doing, and gives me his full attention, an act he only does rarely.

               “My friends and the people I work with have all asked me the same thing.” He pauses. “I love your mother. What else can I do? I will support her no matter what she chooses to do. If that means I have to lose her so she can find herself, then I can at least make sure she is well taken care of in the process.”

               I have nothing to say to this.

               I have learned a lesson this day.

               What it is, I will not know for years to come.