Growing up, I understood one thing about my dad: he knew everything. This was our relationship: I asked him questions and he told me the answers. Is there really a man in the moon? How do sailboats work? In my teen years, he taught me things I'd need to know to survive in the real world. How to check your car. The correct knife to bring along.
When I moved out, I called him at least once a week, usually when something broke in my apartment. After I got married, I needed him less because I had my husband and Google. When I called our conversations changed into six words. Me: "Hi, Dad." Him: "Hi, sweets. Here's Mom." (Because I still needed her - How do I cook chicken? Do I need to call the doctor for my daughter's fever?) I loved my dad, of course, but I wondered at times if maybe he had already shared everything I needed to know. Maybe I'd heard all his stories. Maybe, after knowing a man for 30 years, there's nothing left to say.
Then, this past summer, my husband and I moved in with my parents for three weeks while our house was being repaired. They own a lake house, and Dad asked me to help him repair the walls. I didn't balk— it was the least I could do for free rent(房租) — but I felt anxious. It was difficult. We got wet and sandy. But as we rebuilt the walls, my dad knowing exactly what went . I looked at him, "How do you know how to build walls?"
"I spent a summer in college building them." "You did?" I thought I knew everything about my dad, but I never knew this. "Yep. Now let me teach you how to use this saw(锯子)." As he explained the skills, I realized that maybe it's not that there's nothing left to say. Maybe it's just that I've spent my life asking him the wrong questions.
A few weeks later, after my family moved back into our own house, I called my parents. Dad answered. "Hi, sweets," he said. "Here's Mom." "Wait, Dad," I said. "How are you?" We ended up talking about work he was doing. Nothing life-changing. To anyone else, it would sound like a normal conversation between a dad and his daughter. But to me, it was a new beginning. I spent the first part of my life needing to talk to my dad. Now I talk to him because I want to.
