Gareth Scissorhands

I was at the birth of my daughter and held her for the first time within moments of the doctor delivering her. Two things happened to me in that moment. I loved her instantly and almost as quickly began to worry about her. That moment changed my life. From that moment on, I worried she would die of SIDS, I would drop her or that I wouldn't be a very good father to her. Later it was all the ever-present dangers in the world. I worried about her even though my sisters and I had navigated our way safely through our lives and I worried even though a voice whispered that I was being a tad irrational.

I didn't act on those worries other than to watch over her and to try and teach her, along with my wife, the things she needed to know to be safe, to be successful and to be happy. I was strict but tried to be fair. For her part, my daughter was bright, honest, independent and stubborn. She seldom broke the rules, however, and I trusted her then and still do today.

By the time she was 15, I was slowly learning to ease the boundaries of the rules I had set down and she, for her part was testing those boundaries. She was also starting to date and if I thought that I worried before then, this brought an entirely new level of anxiety for which I was little prepared. I pretended it didn't bother me and that I was 'cool" with it but I saw every guy who knocked on the door as a potential violator. My wife used to say that my problem was that I saw myself in them. Nice...very, very nice. (It didn't help that some of the guys my daughter dated looked a lot like me at their age.)

Then she mentioned someone new. Gareth and I was relieved.

She told us over dinner one night that there was a school dance the following Friday night and a guy from school named Gareth had asked her to go with him. I was pleased. Gareth sounded like he might be the president of the math or the chess club. With a name like Gareth, I was sure he did well in school, didn't drink or do drugs, would treat my daughter carefully and would bring her home early. No worries here and I positively coasted through the rest of the week.

On Friday night, my wife and I arrived home from work around 5:30. When we walked through the front door, the cat bolted from the house screeching and I could understand why. The smell of perfume was so strong, my eyes started to water and I was choking on the fumes. The music was so loud, my ears began bleeding. Holding a hankerchief over my nose, I opened some windows while my wife got the stereo volume down to a manageable level and then we called a hello upstairs where my daughter was getting ready for the big date. We knew she was getting ready because there was a lot of thumping and bumping going on, heavy footsteps running back and forth from the bedroom and the bathroom.doors and the sound of Black and Decker power tools. This was some serious date preparation.

I ordered pizza and when it arrived, my daughter came down in her underwear, big radio antenna curlers in her hair and with one eye  made up. She grabbed a piece of pizza and started to head upstairs again but stopped and came back and said, "Dad, Gareth will be here at 7:00. Just let him in and don't do what you usually do." I was confused and asked, "What do I usually do?". She said, "You're too much you. Don't do that!"

Estrogen has always confused me but having grown up with sisters, I tend to recognize when it's a good time not to say anything, so I just nodded and kept eating pizza. At 7:00, the doorbell rang and I went down the hall to meet Gareth for the first time.

Only it wasn't Gareth standing on my front porch. It wasn't the president of the chess club. It wasn't the math over-achiever in a nice suit with a pleasant smile and straight teeth. It was Gareth Scissorhands, Edward's brother.

Picture this. Black spiked hair, a dangly earring with a skull at the end hanging from one ear, black jeans with a silver-studded black leather belt, a MegaDeath t-shirt with a hole strategically over the left nipple, running shoes and a black, full-length Matrix type coat accented with black leather gloves with no fingers.

"He took the cigarette out of his mouth and said, "Hey, is Crissy ready?" (I changed her name because I'll be in enough trouble just for telling this story. I don't need more!)

I looked him up and down for a moment and said, "I'm sorry but no one named Crissy lives here." and closed the door.

My daughter came flying down the stairs in knitted black dress that was too short and too form-fitting, that her mother had bought for her. "Dad!!! she muttered at me and ran out the door to bring Gareth Scissorhands back. Meanwhile I was in the kitchen telling her mother to go and do something before he turned our shrubs into topiaries.

It turned out that Gareth Scissorhands was actually a pretty nice guy but he didn't last long and my daughter moved on. Eventually she met the young man who would become her husband and I am very proud of her choice. He's a good guy and a good husband. Together they have created a little boy who has brightened his small part of the world for all of us. It all ended well. She even learned to forgive me for that night, it took awhile and a couple of repentence gifts, but eventually she did forgive me.

That was a long time ago but I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes trembling and in a cold sweat after a bad dream about my  daughter, Gareth Scissorhands and how different the world might have been. Those are scarey dreams.

© 2011 Maggie's Bear
all rights reserved
If you are so inclined, you can follow me on Twitter @maggsbear. Follow me even though I'm not 100% sure of where I'm going....look on it as an adventure.