The Men In My Life - MY DAD

I thought it'd be good to introduce you to all the men in my life and to kick it off I'll start with my dad. After all most psychologists agree that the father/daughter relationship is one of the major factors that influences your decision on who to marry.

So here goes... my dad is a super hero (literally). He managed to provide for his family (all six of us) by himself. My parents decided that my mom would stay at home with us kids (which was an easy decision to make when there were only 2 kids but then thanks to some antibiotics and a belated birthday celebration I was on the way and a few years later my parentals decided I couldn't go through life on my own so they had my younger sister... but I digress) to take care of us, fetching and carrying us from school and sporting activities, parties and ballet and helping us with our homework. Now I know that my parents struggled financially, there were often times when the budget just didn't stretch far enough but somehow it always worked out in the end and we were never without food on the table. I remember times when my dad would come home from work, eat dinner and then go straight to the garage where he would fix people's TV's and VCR's for extra cash. We didn't go on family holidays or anything like that but we would do other fun stuff as a family. I remember us regularly driving to the ice-cream shop in our VW Combi to buy the whole family "Dream Cloud" ice-creams.

So ja my dad is my hero. He is the first one I'll call when I'm in trouble. One of the things I regret most was calling him in the middle of the night after nearly killing a pedestrian and her drunk boyfriend with my car. I literally spent the first few seconds on the phone just screaming ... I was too panicked and shocked to do anything else. My poor dad, I think he aged considerably that night. He eventually managed to calm me down enough to find out where I was (ironically I was a block away from home) and within minutes he was right there next to my car window. That was probably one of the most terrifying nights of my life and I'm so grateful I could call my dad to come help me.

My dad is incredible. Even now that I'm older and don't live at home I know that I can still call him when I need help. Not so long ago I had the MOST excrutiating ear ache (I used to suffer with ear aches alot as a kid so I think my dad is used to me and my ear problems) on a Saturday night. My ear literally felt like it was about to explode (or is it implode)! So I phoned my dad and basically cried like a little baby which really just made the ear ache worse. Within 20 minutes my dad arrives at my house with pain-killers and a thermometer to check my temperature. He's also made a turn at casualty to check with the doctor on duty if he should bring me in. He then sat with me till the pain-killers kicked in and the next day came to fetch me to take me to my doctor's appointment.

I know that I am extremely blessed to have a dad like this and I know that alot of people haven't had the priviledge of experiencing a father/daughter relationship like ours. It is not something I'll ever take for granted.