[This is a piece I wrote simply because I had to.]
Every father who has a daughter must face that day when he has to give her up. In fact, I suspect that if I read all the books available on the subject, I’d find that the “giving up” occurs in stages over the life of the father-daughter relationship. You give up a little when she first goes to school. You give up a little when she has her first boy friend. You give up a little when she goes to high school. You give up a little when she goes away to college. And you give up anything that’s left when she gets married.
It was meant to be that way, I think. The universe exists on gradual change. Man has very neatly marked the beginning of each of the earth’s seasons, but those artificial demarcations are of little importance to the planet. The winds blow as they will and the rains fall as they must. And each new sunrise brings us an imperceptibly different world that gradually shakes a new set of leaves, and lives, at our feet.
Our frail human natures demand the subtlety. Imagine what would happen if the earth rotated only once an hour. How would the citizens of Cincinnatti feel if they were suddenly jarred into Kansas City, and then, an hour later, into Denver. If they survived the physical trauma, I doubt they’d survive the emotional distress. Dorothy may be able to go to sleep in Kansas and wake up in Oz, but the rest of us need a little time to read the road signs along the way.
And Oz is, as I get to the point, where I live. My personal tornado was the departure of my daughter from our house. My “giving up” appears to be occuring in one cruel gust of wind. Adopted by us six years ago at the age of ten, our daughter has run away.
The whos, whats, wheres, whens, and even the whys, are not important now.
