Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Still his little girl

My first real job in high school, aside from babysitting and running a neighborhood paper route, was a part time position at the Paradise Bakery at the Vancouver Mall. I worked there for seven months before moving on, which is strange to think about now, because those seven months feel like they were far longer than that. Like in any job, the first few weeks were hard, getting acclimated to the structure of the job, the expectations of management, the ever-so-fun world of customer service.

Since it was my first job, my father wanted to make sure that I was doing all right, that I was happy, to see where I worked so when he pictured me, he could see me there. Somewhere in that first week or two of working, Dad slipped over to the mall and entirely undetected by me, saw me at work. I never saw him that day, only heard about it from him later on, but I knew then that a pattern would emerge. And every local job I have ever had since, within the first few weeks of starting, my father has cruised by to see.

Yesterday, while shampooing a client, for some unknown reason, I looked up to the front windows of the salon to see my father walking past, waving. Closer to thirty than twenty years old, it still made me smile. I know I am a lucky girl to have a father who loves me that much.

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