A touching letter from father to daughter

I am blessed. I have a wonderful family, a strong faith and the love of wonderful friends. Recently a real good friend of mine shared something very dear to her heart with me. Her father is very sick and any child who has a parent who is dying knows the pain of feeling helpless.

We only want to do what is best for those we love. We feel as if the time has come that they need us. Yet, we don’t want to be pushy.

So her father wrote her this letter and she shared it with me. I’d like to share it with you. I hope that it opens your heart and makes you think about your family and your time here on this earth.


A Father Needs His Children


I needed you when you were born.

You showed me there were more important things in life than myself.

Because of you I learned tenderness, caring, nurturing.

You made me responsible for my actions because they now affected more than just me.

I needed you when you were starting to grow and learning to walk.

I needed to see that look of trust in your eyes that I would catch you if you were to stumble and fall.

Your faith in me to do what was best. I needed you at the end of the day.

I knew no matter how badly the day went that a simple smile, a laugh, a “Daddy I love you” would make everything better.

I needed you to know that I would walk in front of you to protect you from whatever lay ahead.

I needed you when you entered the uncertain years of being a teenager.

A time of more questions than answers.

I needed you to test my resolve and faith in you so that I could show you I believed in you.

To show you that now I would walk beside you and that you are not alone.

That we would face, together, whatever came our way.

I needed you when you took your first steps into adulthood.

I needed you to see my look of pride.

To let you know that I now walked behind you to give you support and encouragement on the path that YOU chose.

To applaud your successes and if you were to stumble, to help you get back up, dust you off, and with a fatherly nudge, get you back onto your path.

I need you now in my later years when my health and age are taking their toll.

I need you to walk beside me in case I should stumble.

I need you to let me choose the direction my life will take.

To allow me to face whatever comes with dignity.

To allow me to do as much as I can for myself so I can maintain my self respect.

A time may come when you will have to decide for me, but it is not now.

I will need you when my days finally come to an end.

I will need you to be strong.

To mourn my passage, yes, but moreover to celebrate my having lived.

To hopefully remember fondly the times we spent together.

To smile at my all too human frailties.

To chuckle at my weak attempts at magic to amaze you.

My all-to-fatherly sense of humor.

To know that I have always loved you and if you need me you need only to close your eyes and think of me and I will be there for you.

Tara and her Daddy

Do I need my children, yes I do.

But then I always have. I always will.

All My Love,

Daddy

I read this and my heart aches for the love that this man has for his child. I feel blessed by her sharing this with me, and I hope that she knows how blessed she is to possess something of this caliber.

I would give anything to have something like this from my daddy, but even though I don’t have it in print like she does, I have his life lessons in my heart.

I hope that you have been blessed by this, and I hope that you, as parents, take a moment to sit down and let your children know why you need them. Let them know you love them and give them a special piece of your heart.

08-05-10