I was 16 year old boy. My dad was going away for a few months to another part of the country to try to find work. He was leaving very early in the morning. I wanted to get up to say bye, but I overslept. Before he left, he quietly came into my room. The light through the door woke me. But I didn’t come to my senses immediately and didn’t move.
My dad very carefully and gently petted my head and whispered that he loved me as he quietly left. He didn’t know I heard or felt him. I wanted to jump up and hug him, but I didn’t want to take the moment away from him. I never told him I was actually awake. It is a beautiful memory for me.
UPDATE: I am shocked at the number of upvotes I have received for my answer. Thank you!
However, I would like to point out to the many people commenting that I posed a misleading question that I am NOT the one who submitted the question.
I have simply provided an answer to a question submitted by another user. Please do not comment on my answer to that original question saying I need to work on the title, that I purposely mislead people into expecting much darker discussion, etc. You are reading an answer to a question.
If you are unhappy with the question itself, please provide your comment directly to it and not here to this answer of it.
I was about 3 or 4, had just started kindergarten back in the late 1950’s.
If we went to visit our Aunty and Uncle for dinner, we usually got home late (was probably only about 9pm, late for me).
I would be dozing in the back, not really asleep. When we got home I would pretend to be asleep so dad would carry me up to bed and tuck me in.
Mum would rouse on me the next morning, she would tell me to stop pretending because dad wasn’t well and shouldn’t be carrying me up stairs.
I couldn’t understand that because he seemed fine to me.
Just before I finished kindergarten, my daddy died. He had a heart problem that us kids (me and my two older sisters) didn’t know about.
Those memories of him carrying me up stairs and tucking me in are the most precious memories I have of my Daddy.
Thanks for asking this question; much more than a few tears have come to my eyes as I vividly relive these memories.
As a child during the 1950s the best part of going to a double-feature at drive-in movies was just going to the movies with my parents and not being left home with a baby-sitter.
I would make it through the first movie and intermission, but during the second one, Sister and I would always fall asleep in the back seat of our 1952 Plymouth sedan. When we arrived home and parked the car, I would slightly rouse.
Then while Mom carried my little sister, Dad carried me in his strong protective arms, next to his warm chest, my face against his neck. He would put me gently into bed, always with a kiss and some loving words. I don’t remember the words; I remember Dad’s love and his scent.
