Dad!!! Got a Minute?

There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. 
-- John Gregory Brown

Even through the glass incubator and the glass door you sent forth signals that you were in control. You were just a cloth bundle, your eyes tightly shut, and was that a smile playing about on your lips? You are the confirmation of our immortality, the answer to our prayers, the unfolding of the miracle called Life.  You allowed us to cradle you in our arms and rewarded us with your impish smile that opened the floodgates of joy. You let us look deep into your large black eyes and read from the volumes of your accumulated wisdom which you would soon unlearn in our foolish desire to educate you.
I crawled around with you and I learned to stand and wonder and fearlessly feed grass to giraffes. I struggled with Math and the guitar and my chest burst with pride when you breasted the tape. I hid my sores and forgot my woes as I grew and you did too. And all my failures turned to victories with every win of yours. Yet it was you who grasped my hand looked up in awe and soundlessly said “My papa strongest”.
You who walked out in the first flush of youth every day to conquer the world. You who returned positive and upbeat about the morrow, never mind the slings and arrows of the present day. You who taught us that life begins when you want it to and that it has nothing to do with numbers. When you walk out through the door I stand at the window even when I am miles away, awaiting your safe return. Your mother was the worrier and your father was the warrior with both roles interchangeable. And yet it was you who grasped my hand looked up with concern and soundlessly said “I missed you Dad”.
I heard the silence of your tender heartbreak before you allowed me in. And on that cold and wet night in the ramshackle home in the mountains when you unburdened your heart of its load, I smiled as I sobbed within. And we wondered at the injustice of it all as you put your head on my shoulder and went off to sleep while I worried whether the cracks would ever fill. Ah!! The resilience of youth. It was easy to resolve to hate any man who threatened to take you away from me. You were under my protection, feeble as it may have been. Could anyone ever understand you, the way I do? Could anyone ever know your worth, the way I do? But the real question was not that someone would take you away from me. The question was: would you go away from me? And it does not seem fair. We nurse and we raise and we nurture and we nourish and then we give you away. You were my little girl who grew up to be my friend. I only hope that I have been worthy of your friendship. 
That whenever you came up to me, hiding not too well all your anxieties and said “Dad! You got a minute?” I was listening with my heart and my soul and not just with my ears.  I was sharing all my hopes and not just my fears. You saw all my smiles and not any of my tears.