Princesses of Myth

Fathers’ Day 2012 is almost here as I write this.  My own dad is no longer with us, nor is my father-in-law, who always treated me like a daughter.  This Fathers’ Day is a first for me, because not only will my kids and I be celebrating what a great father my husband is but we’re also celebrating our son’s very first year being a father himself.

Wow.

I think about my Dad a lot, not just on Fathers’ Day.  He was a wonderful father who seemed to have the knack for balancing his natural protective urges and the knowledge that all children–even when it’s your only child–have to learn how to be independent.  He took a lot of teasing form his colleagues at work about being over-protective of me, but the reality was quite different.  He taught at the high school I would have attended if I hadn’t been admitted to a special school.  His school was in Brooklyn, mine was in Manhattan, a forty-five minute subway ride away.  He could have said “No.”  He could have insisted that I not go to that school, and that I attend his, which was within easy walking distance of our home.

He didn’t.  He let me be free.

When I wrote about Helen of Sparta’s father, and Nefertiti’s, and Himiko’s, each one was different form the rest, an individual.  However, one thing about all of them remained the same:  They loved their daughters dearly.  They might not have understood their daughters all the time, but that didn’t matter in the long run:  They loved them.

And whether or not their duaghters always understood their fathers, they loved them, too.

Happy Fathers’ Day.