Between Ninja Turtles and Now

When I think about my dad, I think about a lot of things.  I think about him making a yellow ninja turtle costume for me out of fleece when I was four, because we’d just rented an old TMNT cartoon from the Co-op and I now wanted to be a ninja turtle.  I think about him coming to my kindergarten class and telling us about potash, and how everyone but me ended up eating the little samples he brought for us.  I think about him coaching my baseball team, back when such a thing still existed and before it became apparent I was lacking all athletic ability.  I think about him taking me to the city to get a haircut when I was eight and not interjecting when I told the hairdresser I wanted short hair (for the first time ever), because it was my decision to make.  I think about competing together in the three-legged race at the mine picnic and winning the coveted prize of a plastic paddling pool (with only minimal cheating involved).  I think about him taking me to dance competitions and sitting through hours of amateur ballet and high-maintenance moms just to see my two minutes on stage.  I think about him going to Regina and back just to pick up the cell phone charger I’d forgotten at the hotel after a SADD conference.  I think about him cutting grass on the hottest days of summer so I could go to Costa Rica.  I think about him making egg sandwiches for breakfast every Sunday.  I think about him winning every game of Star Wars Monopoly we ever played except one.  And I think about sitting at the top of the stairs one night when I was sixteen, yelling at each other in the kitchen.

It started with a carton of cigarettes.  I’ll never be sure of what really caused such a fight, the atmosphere had been tense for weeks and anyone could tell that something was brewing, just waiting for the smallest incident to light a spark, and this was only that incident. 

We’d all gone into the city earlier that day to grocery shop, and that evening once we were home again, it became evident that the carton of cigarettes he’d bought earlier had been forgotten.  Most likely, they were left in the basket of the shopping cart when my brother returned the cart to the store entrance, an honest mistake.  But in Dad’s mind, it was someone’s ‘fault’ and he let his quick temper get the best of him.  It began with accusations, and continued with shouting and swearing, before moving on to other topics not at all related to the carton of cigarettes- insults on our general uselessness and laziness.  I began to yell back, but he wasn’t listening because nothing I could say would be important enough until, “I’M LEAVING!”  Of course, I had no real intentions of leaving (where would I even go?); I was just being an overdramatic teenager.  It got his attention though.  He started to hear me.  He told me not to leave.  The fight didn’t stop though it only became two-sided, because what could I possibly be complaining about or have to say that could be as important as what he had to say?  He asked why I would want to leave but then wouldn’t hear out my ‘reasoning’.  I was screaming at him all the things I hated about him, but tears were streaming down my face because I didn’t want to hate so many things, and I didn’t want to fight.  I couldn’t stop though.  I needed to be heard.  All I needed was one irrefutable point, one thing he couldn’t dismiss away.

“I HATE THE WAY YOU TALK ABOUT WOMEN!  I HATE THAT YOU SAY WOMEN ARE CRUEL AND STUPID AND GOOD FOR NOTHING!  I HATE THAT YOU SAY ALL WOMEN ARE THE SAME!”

“WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?” He was still yelling but seemed genuinely thrown off by what I had said.

“I MEAN, HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL?” I yelled back, still crying.

“IT’S NOT MY FAULT THEY ALL ACT THAT WAY!”

“BUT I’M A WOMAN, DAD AND I’M NOT ‘ALL WOMEN’!”

That was when I saw a new side of my dad, because I wasn’t the only one crying anymore.  To my knowledge, that was the only time I ever saw my dad cry.  With tears in his eyes, he said quietly, “I don’t think of you that way.  I’m sorry.  I don’t think of you as a woman.  You’re still my little girl.”

It was the first time I ever felt like an adult: I’d never fully thought of my parents as people before, people just like me or anyone else.  Sometime between ninja turtles and now, I’d grown up.  I had slowly become someone he didn’t completely know anymore, and someone he couldn’t completely protect anymore.  I realized that it wasn’t that my dad didn’t love me; it was that he loved me so much it was breaking his heart. 

Jazmin