The Person I Call Home

At college I started to notice my friends using the word “home” to refer to their dorm at school, but I never did that. It never felt right to me. Going back and forth between my hometown and school, I started to think a lot about what a home really is.

A home is where you feel safe. In a home, you feel loved. Support, care, acceptance, and stability: all things I think you should have in a home. For me, all of those words don’t boil down to a place—they are embodied in a person.

My Dad is my home.
Whenever he’s around I feel like I’m inside a bubble of unconditional love. I just have this feeling that if my Dad’s around, things can’t get so bad. He’s a safety net. He makes walking life’s tightrope a lot less scary, because I know I can’t hit the ground. Even if I don’t end up needing him, knowing that he’s there if I stumble makes it possible to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep my chin up and my eyes off the ground, looking towards where I want to go.

On this special day, I want to take the time to thank my Dad, my home, for a few things. I’ve chosen to do so in the form of one of his favorite things: a list.

1. When I was learning how to drive it made me really anxious. I couldn’t get comfortable behind the wheel of a two ton hunk of metal moving at fifty-some miles per hour. We had plans to get ice cream after I took my license test in celebration. I didn’t pass. We still went to get ice cream.

Dad, thanks for being supportive no matter the outcome.

2. For a few years growing up, I thought I might want to be a pastry chef. I watched Food Network nonstop and baked countless cupcakes. One Christmas, when I was probably 13, I unwrapped a torch my Dad got me so that I could make crème brûlée the authentic way, caramelizing the sugar on top with the flame. (What 13 year old owns a crème brûlée torch?!)

Dad, thanks for always encouraging my passions.

3. When I got my nose pierced, I texted my Dad saying, “I might get my nose pierced this week,” and then again fifteen minutes later saying, “I did it!” He didn’t care, because he raised me to understand that the way I look is the least important thing about me. He never cared how much I weighed or how I wore my hair and I think because of that, those things then mattered less to me, too.

Dad, thanks for showing me that how I treat people and what I care about are far more important than what is in the mirror.

4. I became interested in politics at a pretty young age, definitely before the 2008 elections. My Dad nurtured my interest carefully. He didn’t treat me like I didn’t know anything because I was just a kid and he didn’t tell me what to think. Back then, and even still today, we’d discuss an issue and I’d get carried away on a bit of a rant and once I finished he’d reply with silence, or maybe a nod. It took me a few years to figure it out, but as I got older I realized that he often won’t say much in response to my opinions because he doesn’t want me to be too heavily influenced by his own opinions.

Dad, thanks for raising me to care about things that matter, while still allowing me to think for myself.

5. Our family has a rule that if you do something twice in a row, it’s a tradition. As a result, we have a lot of traditions. We cut down our Christmas tree at the same farm each year, every Christmas Eve my Dad reads us “’Twas the Night before Christmas,” we go to see a movie together every Thanksgiving, we eat pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day. A few months ago while he was visiting me at college we even had to go see Kung Fu Panda 3 together, because we’d gone to see the first two together when I was younger.

We love our traditions because we love to be together as a family, and the strength and love in my family is all a testament to that of my Dad. Thanks, Dad.

I’m going to stop the list here. Believe me, it could go on and on, but I need to save some for the years to come. Happy Father’s Day to my Dad and all the other dedicated dads out there!

Dad, sorry I’m 5,000 miles away this Father’s Day, but I can’t wait to see you at the airport in just a few more days to give you a big hug and do our secret handshake.