Daddy’s Girl

Today is our actual wedding anniversary (yay!), but I actually want to talk about the day after our wedding, which was Father’s Day. It was such a beautiful day with family: Eric and I came home to my parents’ house, where his parents joined us, and we opened wedding presents, ate leftovers, and devoured the top layer of our cake (why wait a year when we’d hardly had any the day before?) It will go down in history as one of my most special memories from our wedding week, and I’m especially grateful that we were able to celebrate our dads and really relax that day, after all the hustle and bustle of the wedding. I was thinking so much about it yesterday, as we were exploring Newport Beach on a little anniversary weekend getaway. We stepped into a store on Balboa Island, and they were playing Canon in D. Wow. I love little gifts like that.

Father’s Day made me think so much about the special moments I shared with my dad on my wedding day. There aren’t any pictures of this that I know of, but the first time my dad saw me in my dress, his knees gave way and he had to lean against the wall next to him. It was the sweetest thing I ever saw. In all of my imaginings of the wedding, it was the thought of my dad walking me down the aisle that always reduced me to tears. I am so thankful for him, and so thankful that we got to share that moment.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always known that I wanted to marry someone like my daddy. He is just the most gentle, kind, and selfless person I know, and he always has been. There are so many qualities he has that I wish I had more of myself, and that I knew I wanted to find in the person I would spend my life with. My dad showed me from my earliest days what a man should be, and I have never let go of that high standard. The funny thing is that Eric is more like my dad than I ever would have thought possible! I try not to tell him that too much because I don’t want to weird him out, but he has so much of my dad’s temperament and genuine good-heartedness, and, on top of that, he is also a scientist (much to my dad’s delight!) Of course, they are two distinct individuals, but every now and then, Eric will say a phrase that my dad uses often, or I will notice him folding up a cereal box just the way my dad does, and I smile. It makes me so happy that the most important men in my life are so wonderfully similar.

And, on top of all that, one of the greatest gifts of our marriage is that now I have another incredible family! Eric’s dad is so indescribably kind and generous, and so much like my dad and like Eric that I just can’t even believe how blessed I am. All of Eric’s wonderful traits definitely run in the family, and it is such a treat to spend time with his parents. They have always been so loving and so welcoming to me that by the time of our wedding, I already felt like family, and I could not be more proud when they call me their daughter.  It makes me so happy that Eric had such a loving and devoted father as he was growing up, and it makes me even happier that now we can share our dads. Even though we could not spend Father’s Day with them this year, they were definitely with us, in all that they have taught us, in all the love and support they have given us, in every good gift and word of wisdom they have shared with us. Happy Father’s Day to two of the greatest men I have ever known! I am so grateful for both of you, so happy to call you both my own.