The bond between a father and a daughter is unique. A girl’s relationship with her father shapes her childhood experience and determines her behaviour as an adult. It’s the father who sets an example of a “dream man” with a healthy and successful life. If a dad doesn’t participate in his daughter’s life, or his actions are erratic, it might lead to low self-esteem and trouble with trusting men in general. By contrast, if a daughter has a good relationship with her father, she has a lower risk of developing anxiety or depression and she deals with stress better … so says a recent study.
I would like to say that being the primary carer for my daughter in her early years has created a unique bond unlike any I’ve had with anyone else on the planet.
And it’s almost like a game. If I ask for a cuddle, she’ll give one to her mother – not me. But when she’s genuinely hurt, she always comes running to me to give her a hug, make the hurting stop and make the injustice go away. And as far as I’m concerned, a daughter is never too old to cry on daddy’s shoulder.
But it goes both ways. Daughters can make their daddy’s cry too. As just one example, I genuinely believe that my pre-existing PTSD was exacerbated by watching her fall from the monkey bars at school, breaking both her ulna and radius in a gut curdling manner.
On a more positive note, we share hobbies and interests like swimming, and a genuine love for Mother Nature. Early on, she noted that I have a particular penchant for dolphins. Mainly due to a picture on our wall of me swimming with ‘Buck’ at the then ‘Pet Porpoise Pool’ in Coffs Harbour.
The cherished photo that adornes my dining room wall
She’d ask why I was swimming with a dolphin and I’d tell her stories of when I worked there during my university holidays, back in the 1990’s. Part of my job was to ensure the vitamins were put into Buck’s fish, to feed him, assist in the public performances, and to play and swim with him after hours. I remember the highs and lows of that job. It was voluntary animal husbandry – but the hands-on experience was priceless. It’s as close as I can guess or sympathise with how a drug addict feels. All day was a high, but when you knocked-off and went home, it was like being hit by a wave of depression. Simply not being with the animals and feeling their echo location on your body - and the general feel of positiveness - was a bummer.
On top of this, I love telling my daughter tales of animal rescue involving wild marine mammals in strife. And then there are the stories about the dolphins I encountered when surfing. Or buzzing around on an Army Zodiac having encounters with dolphins and whales 20km from shore. From all this, my daughter absorbed a love for ‘Buck’. I even took her back to Coffs Harbour to see him twice.
On the last visit to Coffs, I truly believe that Buck recognised me through the porthole window of his enclosure. There were many viewing ports with many faces peering at him, but my daughter pointed out that Buck was actively only coming to the one with she and I in it. We stayed there for at least 20 mins and, sure enough, to the rest of the visitors’ dismay he was only coming up to our porthole.
My daughter now has a silver neckless of a dolphin tail with the word ‘Buck’ embossed on it - and it’s her most prized possession. Beyond all the childhood niff-naff she’s accumulated, it’s that necklace that she values above all. And everytime we go to any beach and see wild dolphins in the water, she swears that it’s Buck following us. It’s enough to bring a tear of joy to a man’s face.
One evening recently she asked if we could go on the net and see if there were any pictures of Buck at the Pet Porpoise Pool (now called the Dolphin Marine Conservation Park). ‘Of course we can’ was the answer. Flicking through the search results, I noticed a news report stating that Buck had died … 12 months previously. While my daughter is still too young to have noticed the headline, I fell into tears straight away and had to move away to a quiet space. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her he was gone. In fact I’m crying as I type this.
An old friend is dead, but he still lives in my heart and memories – and now he also lives in the imagination of a little girl.
I hope he always will.
Buck in the porthole with my family and friends