Daughtering

I'm thinking. I don't want things to change. I still want to be a daughter for as long as possible. I want to be a daughter for the rest of my life but that would be very selfish because it would mean making my mum and dad daughterless. And no parent should ever have to bury their child. Yes I know, I'm 35, but I'm still their child. I wonder when I'll stop being a daughter. Life's been so good to me in the daughter stakes. Very good. I saw my dad today, bless him, what a man. A man going through his own woes and concerned about his daughter's fever. And he touched my head, he touched my hand and he also touched my hair, just like when I was 5 years old. My dad has a lovely touch, his hands are so soft, and they impart love. And I loved it but it made me sad at the same time. Will there be a time in my life when I will not be able to turn to my dad because he won't be around any more? Me, dadless? Crazy crazy thought which I cannot even manage to imagine. My dad with whom I can carry the most lengthy of conversations with just one look? My dad who has had eyes for me only as long as I can remember. I'm proud of my dad. There is not one person who has said something negative about him. Sometimes, at work, he is mentioned. And I stay silent, I do not let on that he is my dad and I his daughter. And I hear only praise. He is praised for being kind, for being a nice chap, for his eagerness in his work. And then I make the people do a double take, I let on that I am the daughter. Yes, ok ok, so we don't look alike. But people do not know him some 35 years ago. I do not need a DNA test to see if he's my daddy. We sleep in the same foetal manner, we eat in the same manner, our fingernails grow in the same manner. I have his hair (underneath all that dye), I have his eyes, his freckles. And yes dad was big too, very very big. It's hard to imagine now, but I remember a very soft cushioned daddy who was told to lose the weight or he'd lose his life. And my dad being my dad could not bear to lose his girl, so he shed the weight, a massive 70kg+. I have a trim, slim, athletic dad now. But he's still the same dad I knew when cushioned. And back then he was my only friend because I, unlike him, do not socialise very well. He never was the normal father figure. I was never scared of my dad, I always patiently waited for the minute I heard the footsteps walking up to the door. I never could understand a stern patriarchal figure because I never had one.We went out together everywhere, we made music together, and he is responsible for me having gone the furthest possible in my music studies. He wanted his daughter to be the most quailified ever. I wanted to make him proud. I think I did. And I remember one day, when a classmate's dad died. I was so scared, so scared it could have been me. And the feeling stuck, I was always so scared it would be me. The fear is still there and it makes me sick. I don't know what has brought this all about, perhaps it's the fever. Perhaps it the fact that things aren't medically well with him either. I just hope he's at least around till he's 100. Only then, perhaps I can let go. I can write freely here because my dad is the most computer illiterate person I know, so he will never read this. I wouldn't want him to think I needed a favour or something of the sort. He's done so much. And I love him a lot, a whole lot. My kind dad deserves to live, so that I may never let go of him.