I just had a small outing with my two beautiful daughters ages 11 and 13 and each time I see them I just fall more in love with them. I can honestly say that I would do anything and I mean anything for them.
While thinking about this today and even over the past few months I was reminded of an incident at a support group meeting I went to a few years back. There was another transwoman there and she was bemoaning the fact that her daughter did not want her to play an active roll in her wedding if she insisted in going as a woman. I was relatively early in my transition having just gone full time but I tried to put myself in this transwomans shoes.
If one of my daughters were getting married and wanted me to walk her down the isle as dad in male mode, I would tuck my hair up under a top hat, tape the boobs down, put on a tuxedo and proudly walk her down the isle!
Getting married for the first time only happens once in a woman's life but I have the rest of my life to be a woman.
I was separated from my kids and not permitted to even talk to them on the phone for a whole year and just got to start spending time with again this Easter. My ex saw how close we were getting and started playing dirty. Long story short, a year of fighting in court and me proving the she is pretty much an unfit mother made her change her mind and drop the case.
Today I had a pretty tiresome day. I had a court appointment this morning at 8:00 and on my way I blew a tire. So I had to walk just over a mile in the cold drizzling rain and was late for court. Got done there and walked back to the car, saw the tire and rim were shot so I drove very slowly 4 miles to the service center. Waited all afternoon for them to get it fixed and finally got home after doing an emergency service call right at 4:00 so my client could close out end of week reports. When I finally got home at about 6:00 all I wanted to do was lay down. But as luck would have it my oldest daughter called and begged me to to go with them and my ex (whom is now a pretty good friend) to walmart. I almost said no but I could hear my youngest saying "Please daddy? Please come with us I want to see you!"
Of course I said yes and we had a blast. When I'm with my kids I feel 20 years younger and they love that I'm not afraid to have fun and act like a teenage girl with them. For a while after I transitioned they were unsure what to call me in public. My oldest asked me what they should call me and I told her that if it made her feel more comfortable she could call me aunt Cami... that got all twisted by my ex and really caused trouble for a while. But after not seeing my kids for a year I really got to thinking.
What do I want them to call me? Honestly, I don't care but if they still want to call me daddy then I couldn't be happier. I'm proud to be their daddy and I don't care who it outs me to. I love my children more then life itself. If I had to detransition to save their lives I would do it without a moments hesitation.
I would do anything for my beautiful daughters. Anything.
