You’re right, Dad.

One of a slect few family-friendly photos of Douglas Whyte Craighead, a quick draw flipper-offer when cameras were out, and an all-around wonderful father. 

I reached for a new towel this morning and, seeing what was on top of the basket, decided to dig for one I liked better. It turns out I don’t like the finish on the top one. They aren’t absorbent enough.

I remembered when my father said he didn’t like them, either.

He was visiting us in our new home, in Texas, and I gave him the grand tour, showing him to his room with the guest bathroom next door. There hung the new heavy bath towels with a filigree pattern on the surface. 

I don’t remember feeling offended that he didn’t like the towels, only a smidge disappointed.

Today I reached for that towel and thought about how we age and watch the world change, and how we age and watch our children change. From one angle, it looks and feels like they’re always moving away from us. Now too tall to carry. Now dating. Now married. 

Now moving to Texas.

Where once there was absolute togetherness, so many differences.

Even her towels aren’t the same.

I thought about setting up house with my husband, and how in my heart, every small decision was, in some way, an homage to the life I’d lived – felt I was still living – with my parents, and my siblings. How excited I was to have wedding presents to bring out each year, to be like my mom who always told the story of each gift and the person who gave them. How, when I shopped for our home,  I held in my heart the stories of my parents’ first years together – making their young home in Missouri, of the recipes, of the snakes, of my grandparents, of Loretta and Bill, the people who helped them along.

Our family’s origin story.

And now I was living the same chapter in my own life, and Dad was coming to visit, and we could be together in those two places at once. 

Maybe, I thought today, Dad would have liked the towels more if he knew how much I loved him when I picked them out.

But then I hear his voice in my head.

“No, they really stink.”

You’re right, Dad.

And I love you.