My father had just spoken.

"I have all these things I want to tell you before you get here ......   and then when you get here . . . . "

He suddenly looks more gentle ......  more gentle and a bit confused.

"then when you get here ....   I forget what I wanted to say."

I know suddenly.  I know exactly what he means.  While I am gone during the week.  While he tries to understand his world.  While he tries to tell his caregivers what to do.  While he tries to control his existence.  I become the unseen enemy.  I become the personification of everything that keeps him from being the man he used to be.

Until he sees me face to face.

I've heard from friends who are single fathers of a daughter of a special bond.  I've heard jokes about little girls wrapping even the largest males around their tiny little fingers, when the man in question is her father.

That has not been my experience.

My experience has been closer to the gruff open paw bear slap a mother bear may give to a cub on that last trip together.  The one where she chases him or her up a tree, abandons them to become an adult.  The cuff that is supposed to teach every last thing you will need to learn from me and then chase you away.

Today, for a brief instance, I saw that "she's my little daughter" moment . . ..   well not in my father's eyes.  It wasn't in his eyes.  It wasn't in his voice.  It was so brief.  So elusive.  It hung only briefly to be seen.  In the hesitation between "when you get here" and "I forget what I wanted to say."  In that moment of silence I knew, if he could express it, the words would be:  "I remember it's you."