“Mom, who’s your favorite person in this family?” she asked, batting her long lashes at me. After her siblings devolved into a killer argument about stolen Legos, she was feeling pretty confident about her odds for Favorite Kid.
Without pausing for a second, I declared, “Daddy. Daddy is my favorite.”
She gasped, horrified. “You love Daddy more than us?!?”
There’s no backing out now. Might as well double down, I thought. “Absolutely. No question about it. I love you all, tied for second place, but Daddy is definitely first. This whole thing started with him, and it’ll end with him, with a lovely 20-year interlude in the middle where you guys are with us.”
We are halfway through that 20-year interlude and rapidly losing steam, but I’m determined to hang on.
We’ve grown up together, this bearded middle-aged man and I. We met my first semester of college when I picked an argument with him over dinner and we’ve been arguing ever since, in the best of ways, mostly. We’ve sharpened and honed each other into semi-decent adults.
I love our motley crew, all grubby-handed and potty-mouthed, but their Daddy … Daddy is my favorite. We’ve processed our way through heartbreak and upheaval, theological changes and political shifts. Together we’ve built a family out of barrenness and across borders. READ MORE…
