Girl Dad: A Firefly Story

What does it mean to be a girl dad? There is no one definition. It will differ depending on family and circumstance. To me it means more than being a father to a daughter. It means that you have centered your daughter in your life. It means that you clear space to know your daughter, really know her.

You know her interests and her friends. You know her talents and difficulties, and you encourage the former and assist with the latter. You guide her while letting her find her own path.

Being a Girl Dad means that you engage with her on her terms and on the things she likes. Additionally, you teach her the things she should know. You let her know that she is vitally important and can depend on you. You are her safe zone.

I was always involved in my daughter’s life. I read to her every night when I was home. I took her to movies and plays. I cooked and cleaned. I loved her and my wife with every stitch of my being. I tried to show her what being a loving husband and father looked like. All that was being her father. I know the exact moment I graduated from being a father to being a Girl Dad. The date was June 27, 2001, three months after her 11th birthday.

June 27, 2001, was the date my wife died, turning our world upside down. A few days later I sat in the front row of a cavernous Catholic church filled to its edges. Victoria, 11 years old, was on my right, trembling, shedding tears reserved for truly unimaginable horrors. 

The church was packed with mourners including friends, family, colleagues, and other people whose lives had been changed by encounters with Kathleen. Victoria and I were in the first pew, surrounded by family members, but we were alone – a symbol of our deep personal loss and a harbinger of what awaited us. 

It was my turn to speak. I kissed Victoria’s tearstained cheek and felt guilty leaving her even for a few moments. 

As I rose on that warm June morning, a chill swept through me in the hot Gothic church. I shuddered and buttoned my jacket, struck by the eerie silence. How can hundreds of people – so tightly packed – make no sound? My footsteps echoed as I walked to the pulpit.

In the eight months between Kathleen’s hospitalization and her death, I wrestled with the monumental shift in our lives. Before, if asked, I would have said that I was a husband, a father, and the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, in that order. But I was no longer a husband. And thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, I was no longer the U.S. Attorney. The last piece of my identity, father, remained. But in tragically different and deeper ways. 

At the pulpit, before I began my eulogy for my beloved wife, I looked at Victoria, sitting in the first pew. I understood that I would need to get her – and myself – through this. Standing before the assembled mourners, I silently asked myself, what am I going to do now? 

One thing I knew. I had to be there for Victoria. She had to become my meaning.

As I gathered myself, I could hear Kathleen’s voice ringing in my ears. “Stephen, this journey is not about what happens to you. It’s about what you do with what happens to you.”

From that moment forward I centered my daughter in my life. Every decision I made was decided through a lens focused on her. Does it matter whether I take her to, and watch, soccer practice or can that be offloaded to a friend? Do I get to know each of her friends or maintain a safe parental distance? The hair, what do I do about the hair? 

I became the soccer dad that carted her and her teammates to practices and games. I learned to straighten and braid her hair and encouraged her to get maroon highlights. I presided over a gaggle of girls for sleepovers which would end with a scavenger hunt and performances by the girls. I bought two copies of every Harry Potter book so that we could read and discuss them chapter by chapter. When finished we decided where to donate the additional copy of the book (her entry into thinking about philanthropy). 

I went window shopping with her, so I knew the teenage fashions of the day and what she liked … and she knew what I would not allow and why. I introduced her to as many adventures as I could and encouraged her to explore on her own. I pushed her to find her voice and the contribution she could make to the world. 

I let her know that I would always be there for her in the big moments and the small, in the good times and the bad. After all, we had already stared down an unimaginable horror together. 

Whether it was straightening her hair, driving the girls to Long Island for a soccer tournament, or helping her study for the MCAT (the medical school admissions exam), being a Girl Dad has been the greatest adventure of my life.