Puntarenas

One summer evening, my dad came home, looked at my mother and said "How would you feel about me going to Puntarenas?" (That's in Costa Rica. I only mention it because I just had to Google it to find that out.)

My mum, who is very calm and stiff-upper-lip about most things, said "Sounds okay. When are you leaving?"

"In three days."

"When are you coming back?"

"January."

That was how my dad got started with the Coast Guard's icebreaking program. I was three. When he left on the first deployment, I asked him when he'd be back, then he told me "In six months" and then I said "Ok. See you at lunch!" So okay, I didn't really get it at the time.

My dad served on the icebreakers, on and off, until I was about 18. These ships usually have hectic schedules, so it wasn't uncommon, when I was growing up, for him to be gone for six months, back for eight weeks, and then gone again for another four months. Now that I'm "grown up" he'll sometimes make comments about how he missed my childhood. And I know that's true, for him. But for me, it's not. Because it always felt like he was there. I've tried to explain it to him a million times, but it still doesn't make sense to him. Or to me, if I'm feeling particularly rational at the moment. But the truth is, when I was upstairs in my room, it never occurred to me that my dad wasn't sitting downstairs, like normal. He was always very present in the house, even when he was in Antarctica. I didn't need to see him, or have any physical proof of him, to have him around. (That sounds weird, in a Crossing Over with John Edward kind of way, but I don't mean it that way.) That was just my dad - present in absence.