Daddy's here

The four children raced up the stairs, and then they saw him.

“It’s Daddy,” they screamed as they ran to wrap their arms around his legs. “Daddy’s here.”

It’s often the little things dads do that make the biggest difference.

In this case, Dad showed up for church to join his wife and children.

That particular dad’s presence brought immediate joy to those kids.

A father doesn’t have to say much, sometimes nothing, as in that dad’s case, to let his kids know they matter and that he believes in them.

The same truth holds for moms, but we seem to need and expect more verbalization from moms. It seems that often, just a few words from dad will suffice.

My oldest daughter who lives in New York City was home recently for a few precious days. 

I saw her, up in her old bedroom, thumbing through a box.

“Whatcha doing?” I asked her.

 “I’ve kept every note you wrote me when I was growing up,” she told me.

I looked inside later, after she left.

Most of those notes were no more than three or four sentences--- words I’d scribbled in sometimes barely legible handwriting. They often came at significant points in her life. But they weren’t by any means eloquent or awe inspiring, just simple notes encouraging her, letting her know I believed in her.

But the notes were apparently important enough to her that she has kept them tucked away in that closet all these years.

She told me that when she’s home, she often browses through them.

That’s because, I suppose, those notes collectively say, “You matter. You are significant. I believe in you.”

I have a friend whose father drove a bull dozer at a rock quarry when she was a little girl. On his way home from an often grueling day, he had the habit of stopping by a country grocery store and getting her a piece of candy or some tasty knickknack. He would tuck it away in his lunch pail, then open it for her to reach in and find. My friend would so look forward to her dad’s arrival that she would run across the bridge in front of their house each day to greet him. He would then kneel down on her level so she could reach inside the lunch pail for the prize he had for her.

She smiles and her eyes glisten as she tells the story. “His lunch pail has a special place in my kitchen today,” she said. “Every time I look at it, I think of him.”

It doesn’t take much for dads to make a difference. But they do have to be there, whether it’s simply showing up at church, taking the time to write a note, or stopping by the grocery store to buy a piece of candy.

Legendary basketball coach, Jim Valvano’s inspirational 1993 speech at the ESPY awards just eight weeks before he died of cancer still motivates people today.

His speech included this statement: “To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.”

Valvano was apparently “something special” to his dad. In fact, if you want to know who planted the seeds for a positive attitude in Coach Valvano’s life, you might consider the early influence of Valvano’s father. “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me,” Valvano said.

Believe in your kids, and not just when they make you proud: write them notes on their bad days, too; call them when they are hurting; bring them something that says, “I’m thinking of you even when I can’t be with you,” and most of all: be all there for them when you are there. In doing that, you are in some way saying, “I believe in you.”

And hopefully--- if not now---they will at some point, someday, look with fondness and tenderness in dad’s direction and say, if only in their heart, “It’s Daddy. Daddy’s here.”