Daddy's girl

  I am my fathers child.  I look much more like my Mother though.  We have the same build and similar features.  Brunhilda, good German stock she'd always say.  My sisters are both taller, thinner, and have red hair.  We all have my Mom's brown eyes but the similarity ends there.  
  Dad or Padre as I often called him always said he was happy to have three daughters.  Me being the oldest got the honor of helping him whenever there were projects to be done around the house.  Not that my sisters had the least bit of interest in building or fixing anything.  They were off to a friends house or fixing their hair or any number of girly type things.  I found my dad a much better playmate.  I'll never forget my Mother waking up and finding us watching the movie Gypsy at five in the morning.  "That is not appropriate for a 12 year old girl".  To this day it is one of my all time favorite movies.
  Dad was always up at the crack of dawn, another trait we had in common.  A cup of coffee, a cigarette and the crossword puzzle.  Pineapple pancakes and corn beef hash for breakfast.  That is when he was home.  His profession for much of his life was Tugboat captain.  He was gone for two or so weeks them home for a bit while my Mother had the job of raising three kids pretty much on her own.  Mom was hard on me in particular, she always expected me to excel and I tried hard to please her.  Dad would come home and the fun began.  Dinner at Red Lobster, Picnics in the park, camping trips and Disney World.  Poof he was gone again and we went back to the monotony of normal life.  I always wished that I could go with him.
  I never saw my father drink when I was growing up.  My Mother tried to shield us from those times when he would go off on a binge.  I knew there were "issues" but I pretty much ignored those times.  He always came home, a bit disheveled perhaps, but with the same I'll never grow up attitude.
  My parents divorced as soon as all the kids had left our home. I can't say I was surprised but I had my own life by then and it really didn't affect me at all.  He headed to New Jersey and a new girlfriend and it was always a fun time when I visited.  Years went by and he was back again, hammer in hand ready to help me fix up the old house I'd bought.  I got a wreck of a boat and I can only image what people thought when they saw us motoring around the bay.  We had kind of a deal, as long as he was sober, he could stay with me.   I could always tell when he was ready to go.
  The last time I saw my Father, he came to visit me in New York.  I knew he was not well but it didn't stop us from having a great time.  A trip to the casino and we both came home winners.  It wasn't long after that we were scattering his ashes off of a rented boat.  Peter Pan he may have been but to me he was just Dad.  That cross country trip I'm planning, he would have loved to go along.