Off to uni and the big wide world but always my wee girl
EXACTLY 6,796 days. That’s how long it has been since I held her, newborn, in my arms. She hadn’t been expected for another six weeks but from that day I knew that this wee girl wouldn’t be told what to do. We locked eyes; I looked down at my daughter. I had no idea how I was meant to feel… I never had sisters. I grew up in a house full of boys, my poor mum tested by testosterone, mired by manliness. The way of the woman was as mysterious and enigmatic as Ayrshire’s Electric Brae or parking in Edinburgh’s Old Town. Then, some 18 years ago, I held my daughter and a cosmos of colour made meaning of the monochrome life I had led up to that point. Born at the end of the 1960s, I grew up through the shifting tectonic plates of feminism and the ongoing war to win something approaching gender equality. I have witnessed a seismic shift in the sensibility surrounding the role of women in society. For me, this was exponentially accelerated knowing that my own flesh and blood, my baby girl, would have to contend with bias based not on her ability but solely on the dint of her gender. I’ll never forget my late mother-inlaw suggesting, as her granddaughter played with a toy phone, that she would become a secretary. I railed, I raged. My daughter wouldn’t be a secretary; she’d be the CEO. Her poor grandmother was perplexed by my vehemence; little did she realise that her innocent, throwaway comment formed a part – albeit a tiny one – of the patriarchal system that subjugated women. I never used the words “feminism,” “patriarchy” or the like before my wee girl came along. However, it astonishes me that any father of a daughter isn’t taking to the streets campaigning and crusad- ing for a world that will realise, recognise and rejoice in the myriad skills of our daughters. The heartbreaking, soul-destroying notion that this world we are slowly destroying, this world defined by dysfunctionality, could have been a better place had we not ignored half our population. My daughter has clearly changed my life, as has my son, but in decidedly different ways.
Perhaps my relationship with my daughter is explained by the fact that for the first year of her life I was her primary carer. Her mum was winning the bread and I was trying to make it in the world of freelancing. Me and my daughter became inseparable. When she woke in the middle of the night, half asleep, she would navigate her way to my side of the bed and find that perfect place to nestle, under my chin in the channel of my chest; her wee face was seldom further than a foot from mine.
It really does seem like last week she started nursery. And when she did, I didn’t know what to do with my day. In between my tears and her tantrums, my daughter grew up.
Last week, we drove her up to university. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t hugely proud that this London-born, London-raised girl had chosen to come “hame” tae Scotland to study. I was managing with it all fine; I always knew this day would come. She and I had been used to being apart for the last decade; divorce does that. But just when I thought I was going to be fine she dropped me a text. “Do you want my new address, dad?” That was it. I couldn’t deal with it. An address. She has her own address now. A shared room, down a corridor in a hall of residence. But it’s her address. That wee lassie that always looked too small for her school blazer is now an undergraduate, a woman wending her way through this new life.
As her mum and I hugged her, kissed her and said our tearful goodbyes I watched her walk away, away from me and into her new life. And all I can remember is how wee she looked, how much she reminded me of that newborn that I cradled in my arms. As my own brown eyes released tears of joy, pain and pride I remembered her intense brown eyes looking back at me, 6,796 days ago.
And I remembered then, as I know now, she’ll be just fine. Fine and always mine.