Dear Kevin,
You called to ask her on a date. The day the tickets went on sale, in fact. You’d been waiting for months for the church to announce it. She’d been waiting for your invitation. It’s one of her favorite phone calls every year. I can tell by her smile. She doesn’t give me that smile. It’s the one she saves just for her daddy. I never have to ask when you’re taking her every year, because, if her smile doesn’t give it away that day, our calendar sure does. DADDY-DAUGHTER DANCE!!!
I’ll never forget the first time we met. Boy, what you must’ve thought of me! I wasn’t quite 18 and I was the first (man?) she’d ever been interested in, other than you. I made a grand gesture of introducing myself to you as clearly and confidently as I could, kind of like when a bearded dragon inflates its beard or a peacock spreads its feathers. I wasn’t trying to show off or be too overzealous, I promise. I just wanted you to like me. Approve of me. Trust me and feel safe that I’d protect your one and only daughter. I’ll never forget how you shook my hand, either. It’s the same shake you still do today. Quiet. Strong. You nodded when I said, “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Finocchiaro! I’m Jordan Demos!” but you didn’t say anything. At first, I thought maybe you didn’t like me. Maybe you even hated me. I would’ve understood that, ya know? That would’ve made sense. But years later you told me it was the opposite, actually. You told me that, from the moment I walked in, it wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
Through the years, we’ve become close, you and me, partly because we’ve got a lot in common, but mostly because we’re connected by the same wonderful woman, my wife and your daughter: Amy. I thank God for her every day, and I know you do, too. This June, it’ll be five years since we got married. Five years since you walked her down the aisle. Five years since you danced with her to “Cinderella” as 270 guests and I watched from afar. I remember sitting by myself, watching you dance with her, and feeling the strangest emotion. One that you’re not supposed to feel on your wedding day, I don’t think, at least not as the groom. As the father of the bride, certainly, but not as the groom.
I felt sad.
That’s the word. Sad. Sad that I’d taken your little girl from you. Sad that I’d interrupted 21 years of you and her, of her and you. It wasn’t rational. Emotions aren’t. It was, and is, the natural order of things, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard.
This week, when you picked her up again for yet another daddy-daughter dance, when you came to our front door and opened her car door, when you took her on a dinner date and danced the night away with her, something became clear to me for the very first time. Five years ago, I didn’t take her from you. I can’t take her from you, because she doesn’t belong to me and she never belonged to you. She’s on loan to us from God, and we’re just the relay runners responsible for getting her from the starting line to the finish line, two imperfect men striving — until we’re out of breath and blue in the face, toward an impossible goal that we know we’ll never reach but know is worth the race — to give her what we can’t and only God can: perfect love.
Kevin, thank you for taking Amy to the daddy-daughter dance last week, thank you for making her life a daddy daughter dance, and thank you for not only letting me cut in, but for giving me the majority of the dances these days. I cherish them all. Every single one. And I never forget, not even for a second, that the reason I’ve got such a remarkable woman dancing with me is because she first danced, and continues to dance, with you.
Jordan
