Fine

Every day I walk down the hill to meet my daughter.

Rain, hail or shine. I am there at the bottom of the hill, waiting.

She is ten years old. She is perfectly capable of making her own way home. She knows it and I know it. I go anyway.

It is the best ten minutes of my day.

Just the two of us, walking back up together. I always ask the same question — how was your day? Some days she gives me everything. Every detail, every drama, every injustice and triumph of a ten year old’s world, delivered at speed with complete conviction.

Other days she simply says fine.

I have come to love fine almost as much as everything. Fine means she is safe. Fine means she saw me at the bottom of the hill and felt no need to perform. Fine means I am her dad and not an audience.

She always picks the white flowers that grow along the path. She plucks them as she walks, without breaking stride, and then throws them into the air in a small shower. Wedding flowers, she calls them. Every time.

Every time she does it, I find myself thinking about her wedding day — just briefly, just for a moment — before I pull myself back. She is still my little girl. That day is a long way away and I am not ready to think about it yet.

I know other days are coming too. Days when a ten year old becomes twelve, then fifteen, then seventeen — and a dorky dad waiting at the bottom of the hill becomes something to be avoided rather than welcomed. I know that day is approaching. I am not naive about it.

But it hasn’t arrived yet.

For now, she is still happy to see me. For now, she still hands me her bag without being asked, the most casual and complete act of trust. For now, the white flowers still go up into the air and she still calls them wedding flowers and I still walk her home and ask about her day.

One day the hill might defeat me. One day it might be her waiting at the bottom for me, steadying my arm on the way back up. Time has a way of turning things around.

But that day hasn’t come either.

Until then I will be at the bottom of that hill every afternoon, in the rain or the sunshine, ready for everything or fine.

Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder

Stories – Wake Up Here