Daddy was crying.
Daddy was crying and your heart sped up because it felt wrong, but it was true. The tears formed, small, shiny dots, glistening in the corners of his eyes. He didn’t even reach up to wipe them away. Instead, they sat there in their ducts, growing bigger, showing a tiny image of your reflection ready to swallow you up entirely.
The tears in your own eyes stung fiercely.
Daddy doesn’t cry. You knew that, of course, to be a fact. Your Daddy laughed, scolded, teased, taught, and joked. He read The Berenstain Bears to you in silly voices and changed all the words causing you, and your younger sister, Teresa, to laugh until your stomachs ached and you were much too riled up to fall asleep. He took you to Ole Miss football games on the weekends, where you would get sparkly, temporary tattoos on your cheeks and eat candy and French fries, enough to make Mommy roll her eyes. He made pancakes with you on Saturday mornings while cartoons played in the other room. And Daddy smiled during it all. He never, ever cried.
Daddy was gone a lot too. When you were really little, you didn’t understand why he had to pack up his bags full of flight suits and combat boots and leave for months at a time. Listening to him tell stories of sitting on rooftops in the desert, playing guitar and smoking cigars while the sun went down, and exploring foreign lands across the ocean, you always thought he was just taking a grand vacation without you. You didn’t know there was a war going on.
But a war was going on. Military forces from the United States and Britain invaded Iraq. In short, the goal was to remove Saddam Hussein from power. While occupying Baghdad and other cities, U.S. soldiers were dying. A lot of people died. Mommy and Daddy didn’t tell you, though. How could they? They didn’t want you to be scared. All you knew was the good parts, like Daddy was a pilot in the United States Air Force. That he flew his great big planes all around the world, helping people. Daddy did cool stuff! Refueling other planes while flying through the air was one of the coolest things he did, you thought. You didn’t understand how pilots could fly steady enough to connect their planes to each other in the air while traveling hundreds of miles per hour. You got to do fun things, too. Unlacing Daddy’s big, stompy, combat boots when he came home from work each day was a favorite. Teresa and you raced up the stairs while Daddy sat on the edge of the bed. She would take the right boot and you would take the left. Loosening the laces, you two pulled and tugged until the boots slid off. Then, you would giggle, each grab an arm, and pull Daddy downstairs to tell him about your day. Events held on base, like squadron parties and air shows, were always so much fun.
Daddy was your hero. Even though it was hard not having him around, you knew he worked to keep you, and lots of people, safe. You knew that the big planes he flew brought supplies to people in other countries. So, each time he walked out to the plane with his crew before a deployment, wearing his green flight suit with the faded American flag patch and the name “Englehardt” across his chest, your little heart burst with pride. Your daddy was a hero. When he turned around to make the ASL finger symbol for ‘I love you’, you tried to swallow up your tears, stand up tall, and sign it back to him with a dry, smiling face. You wanted to be just like Daddy. And Daddy never cried.
So why was he crying right now?
You were eleven years old. The cycle of deployments, back and forth, on and off, became routine to you and your family. A short trip like this one, only two months, was nothing to you, a seasoned military brat.
You already survived six months with Daddy gone when you were six years old. That deployment was to Iraq. He sent you DVD recordings of him reading your favorite bedtime stories from his bunk and you watched them with Mommy every night. A blank, beige wall, mini fridge, and small, boxy, antennae-equipped TV were the only things you saw in the room where Daddy lived across the ocean. You didn’t really notice though; all you saw was Daddy, your hero, putting you safely to sleep.
You wrote letters to Daddy with crayon drawings and sent care packages with cookies, photos, and beef jerky. He gave you a Build-a-Bear, the kind with the recorded message, and you squeezed its paw to hear him tell you, ‘I love you’ before you went to sleep each night. Even though he was gone, your family included Daddy in all parts of your life.
His return from that trip was set to be in September, when the weather in Spokane, Washington was to be gorgeous. A welcome home party had been planned: chairs and tables were ordered, food was cooked, and invitations sent. You were so very excited.
A few days before his return, you waited to hear from Daddy, but the phone was silent. Rushing around to prepare everything for the feast, Mommy was anxious. Daddy was supposed to fly from Baghdad to Baltimore before catching a final ride home. After hours of no word, Mommy assumed he was in the air, soon to land on U.S. soil once again. The phone remained silent. When it finally rang, Mommy hung her head. Daddy hadn’t even left Baghdad yet.
A sandstorm, called a shamal, sprung up out of nowhere covering the entire city in a thick layer of red dust. Knocking out all communication lines and leaving the air, too, cloudy to see through, the storm prevented Daddy from leaving the warzone. He was stuck in Baghdad for another week.
Poor Mommy informed all the guests of the situation, made new arrangements with the chair and table rentals, and packaged up all the food. On top of that, she comforted you and your siblings. You were inconsolable. After six months of being apart, a whole week felt like an eternity.
If you made it through that deployment when you were six, surely you could survive a short two-month trip now, right? But the shakiness in Daddy’s voice caused you a moment of doubt. Was this really happening?
His hands were on your shoulders and he was looking right into your eyes. “You’re getting to be so big, Miriam,” he said, and his voice broke, ever so slightly, “I’m so proud of you.”
Held there, frozen in that moment, you watched the tears sparkle in the inner corners of his kind, blue eyes. You were startled. It felt like you were seeing something that you weren’t supposed to; something secret, private. You wanted to reach up and wipe them away. The voice inside your head pleaded for the tears to stop. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. A sob caught in your throat, your vision blurred, and then disappeared.
When you finished wiping the tears from your own face, you looked up to notice Daddy’s tears disappeared as quickly as they had sprung up. Like sponges, his eyes soaked them back in. Partnered with crow’s feet, those eyes smiled back at you like they had done many times before. He squeezed your shoulders.
Suddenly you became aware that he wasn’t crouching. He didn’t need to bend over to hug you anymore. Your arms and legs felt freakishly long as you realized that you had grown. You weren’t tall enough to look him straight in the eye yet, but you weren’t a baby anymore, either. You held his gaze.
When had you grown? When had your hair grown longer, darker? Your freckles, more prominent, your baby teeth, gone? Was Daddy there? Or had he missed it, like all the birthdays, soccer games, and piano recitals?
Your youngest sister, Claire, was now four years old, and Daddy had missed every single birthday of hers so far. And Joseph, six, had been only a year old during the long Iraq trip. His first steps celebrated while Daddy was overseas. Not knowing who this strange man was, Joe feared Daddy when he first returned home. After hours of coaxing, he insisted on calling his father ‘Mama’. Even the news of your existence, the news that Mommy was pregnant with her first child, had been relayed over the phone.
Had Daddy missed seeing you grow up into the person you became?
After kissing the top of your head, Daddy held your gaze for a moment longer, telling you he loved you. Then you, Mommy, Teresa, Joe, and Claire walked outside to wave to him as he got in the car and drove away. Backing out of the driveway, he smiled, and flashed the ASL symbol for ‘I love you’ over and over again. You knew that he would always be there for you. Even if he was across an ocean.
Years later, you would remember this day clearly. Each moment stood out in your memory: tears forming, voice cracking, and realization you had grown. You would continue to wonder what made this deployment so different. Why he had cried at only this one and not at the many trips before.
A thought entered your mind as you pondered this. Maybe Daddy had cried every time. Maybe he had held it back to protect you and Mommy and Teresa and the others. Maybe he swallowed up his tears to appear strong for you. To be the hero you expected him to be.
Maybe Daddy had tears in his eyes every time he said goodbye and this was just the first time you were tall enough to see.
You’re older now. Daddy doesn’t go on long, long trips anymore. Instead, you’re the one leaving for months at a time experiencing the wonder that is college. You aren’t an ocean away, but you miss Daddy just the same. Sometimes, you wish you could still hear him read a bedtime story to you in a silly voice. You want to ASL sign ‘I love you’ out the window to him. You want to unlace his big, stompy boots, now dusty in a closet, one more time.
But you can do other things, now. Daddy and you can talk about anything in the world. Nothing beats your sushi dates or the time you spend yelling at the TV while watching football together. Sometimes he comes into your room with a grin on his face, puts a finger to his lips, and whispers, “Wendy’s spicy nuggets?” The two of you laugh as you sneak out of the house (usually as everyone else is going to sleep) and drive to the Wendy’s down the road to pick up spicy chicken nuggets, even though they make both of you feel gross after eating them.
You’ve seen Daddy cry a few more times, too: when his childhood, best friend died, when he retired from the Air Force, and when he kissed you goodbye in front of your freshman dorm. You’re tall enough to see the tears now, and old enough that Daddy doesn’t need to hide them to protect you.
You understand tears are okay, even when they come from a big, tall, military man. Even when they come from a man in uniform, a man who never cried. And you know even though Daddy left the house to go on long, long trips, even though he was gone for years of your childhood, even though he may not have seen every performance, holiday, or celebration, Daddy never left you behind. He carried you everywhere in his heart, and it’ll stay that way, forever.
Miriam Englehardt is a member of the class of 2024 at Elizabethtown College. She grew up as an Air Force brat, living in seven U.S. states and in the United Kingdom before settling in Downingtown, PA when her father retired after 20 years of service. She is studying occupational therapy in the hopes of working with wounded veterans. Her creative nonfiction piece, Tall Enough to See Daddy Cry, is her first published work.
