The Father-Daughter Dance

Daddy never took me to a Father-Daughter dance. He never took me in his arms and whirled me around the dance floor when I was little. I don’t think daddies did that when I was small. Although he was a fun-loving parent, he was more of the old school, when fathers made the living and let the kids make their own fun. I remember reading in an Erma Bombeck book about when she played with her dolls, she never knew what to do with the Daddy doll, so she just stuck it under the bed. She said her own dad went to work, got their prescriptions filled, and brought the car around, never realizing until after he was gone how important he was.

Neither did Daddy let me stand on his shoes while he shuffled me around to the music. But he did measure my foot with string, set off to town and come home with a brown paper-wrapped parcel once that I undid to find a shiny pair of little brown oxfords. New shoes! That was during WWII when shoes were rationed for a time, and the ones we got wore out quickly, made of inferior stuff due to so many raw materials like rubber going to the war effort.

I loved those shoes. I put them on my nightstand when I went to bed so I could wake up and see them in the moonlight. Only 4 or 5, I remember saying I was going to take good care of them and not ever get them dirty. I polished them religiously for a while, then one day I looked down from playing and saw how scuffed they were and wondered when I had quit polishing them.

One day about that time Daddy did spend a rare afternoon of leisure with us kids and took us fishing at the creek in the bottom lands below our house upon the mountain. Although we had fun, fishing was poor that day, and we started home with one fish. Daddy decided to round up our two work horses and take them back up the hill to do some plowing. My older siblings were helping herd them, and I suppose I was, too, I really don’t remember. I do have an impression in my subconscious of a view, as if from above, of a small stick figure, arms outstretched in front of thundering hooves as they bore down upon me.

Daddy gathered my limp form and carried me running and scrambling all the way up the side of that mountain, sending the older boys ahead for help to get me to a hospital. He never left my side during those three days, when, despite massive head injuries, I made a complete and miraculous recovery. Prayers had gone up and God had answered. No, Daddy didn’t take me dancing, but he did take me up in his arms and save my life that day.

Oh, but I did get my Father-Daughter dance in church some 50 years later. The Lord moved mightily and steered me in a joyous dance of praise and worship. Back and forth, in and out among the other worshipers in an exquisite blending of submission and control. He led, I followed, as it seemed Jesus waltzed me across God’s dance floor. I haven’t missed a thing!