The day my dad really was No. 1

His dream was to own a Cadillac someday. My dream was to buy it for him.

But it wasn't a time for dreaming. In 1980, he was a 17-year-veteran of the Boston Fire Department who had seen his last days on the job after a second back surgery.

I was a little girl who watched as my dad struggled to support his wife and five kids while his back could no longer support him. Now, I thought, it was my turn to give him a lift.

Even as a child, I loved to read newspapers. The advice columns were my favorite. One day, a boy wrote in to The Boston Globe asking if there was such a thing as a Father of the Year contest. The answer was yes, and an address in New York City was given.

I needed only one draft, the words poured from my heart onto the paper:

Dear Persons,

I'm 11 years old, blonde hair, brown eyes and five-foot-two.

I know my Daddy should be Father of the Year. Don't tell him about this. I want it to be a surprise.

My Daddy is the best. He has never, ever hit me. He thinks his hand is too big to hit his own child.

Daddy is strong, wonderful, perfection, etc. He holds two jobs, chops wood, picks up our house to help our mother, and he still has time for us five kids.

Today he gave me his last dollar for a dance.

Whenever I hurt or am hurt, he holds me till I stop hurting. I love my Daddy and my mother and don't get the idea I don't like her. I love her. But I also love my Daddy.

He also makes good fish (but I don't like fish.) I wouldn't want anything ever, ever to happen to him.

Without telling anyone, I mailed the letter the same day.

What I didn't know was that the Father of the Year committee recognized celebrities and other luminaries who donated their time and money to charitable causes. It wasn't for real dads who set the alarm for before dawn, set out at first light, and were grateful to be home in time to tuck their kids in at night. It wouldn't have stopped me anyway; my dad deserved this.

I knew my father wasn't like other dads. Though my friends were wary of this enormous man who spoke in curt, thunderous phrases, I knew him to be a gentle giant. He was a man incapable of spending lazy Sunday afternoons in front of the television watching the Red Sox lose - again. Instead, he spent his weekends walking into burning buildings and pulling people out. On his days off, he would rise before dawn and watch the shore recede under a fading moon as he worked the decks on a friend's fishing boat. Anything to raise a few extra dollars for his family.

It was no wonder that at 42, he had broken his back. More frightening, his spirit was beginning to sway under the weight of his desperate world.

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