Hold the wheel and drive. Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there.

Being a UPS driver is what defines much about my father. Daddy always smelled slightly like burnt fuel, cardboard, and sweat. When I think of him, my mental picture is of him in his browns, smiling. He smiled a lot when I was a kid, even if he wasn't always happy.

Those browns were his uniform in most domains of my life. Daddy might have worked seemingly endless days and nights, but he coached my softball team. He showed up for school events. I remember waiting to see him hurrying across the field in that distinctive brown uniform. Hurrying to write out the batting lineup before the game. Hurrying to make it to my basketball game before the second half. Hurrying to awards night. Hurrying to church youth group. Always in those browns.

Daddy was not always an easy man to need. His struggle with depression and his anger hurt me as a child. I got yelled at. Spanked out of anger. Called names. I feared one day his anger would consume him. He'd have a heart attack. He'd die. He'd leave and never come back. He threatened to do any and all of those things at times. It was not easy.

Things got better. Medication helped. Daddy has spent the last several years growing, changing, regretting. Apologizing. Loving. Able to express the side of him that was obscured by his depression and rage for much of my childhood. It has been amazing to get to know the man who is so much like me. I always wondered who I was like in my family. Now I know. I have a father who I can relate to. We are affectionate these days. Like we are making up for those lost years where he raged. That time when my passion, my strong will, and my defiance were intolerable to him has been redeemed. I see his delight in me, my life, my joys, when we talk.

I remember other lessons with him dressed in those browns. Pulling me out to the garage to teach me how to change my spark plugs, change the oil, build something, fix something. He was dressed in those browns at every family dinner during the week before going outside with us kids to mow the yard, or to practice my softball swing, or my brother's jump shot. He even got that high school boyfriend of mine a UPS hat, the one he hated so much because the guy treated me poorly.

Daddy wearing those browns put me through college with a company scholarship. I remember how insulted he was that one year, when I was dating this jerk of a guy in college. Daddy got that guy a job at Christmastime working at UPS, and then jerk guy was too embarrassed to go out to dinner with my family after work wearing those browns. My dad knew what it meant, he wasn't just ashamed of his uniform, he was ashamed of Daddy.

The biggest accomplishment in Daddy's life is his safe driving. When he hit 25 years without an accident, there was a big to do. A company party, a nice blazer, a free vacation. The "Circle of Honor" they call it. I remember every year, my dad perusing the company reward catalog for his safe driving award for the year. The entertainment center in my parents' den. The under cabinet radio sitting in our storage unit, as we have no place to put it. Daddy and the whole family poring over that catalog, trying to choose the only type of bonus he ever got.

And those driving skills have saved our asses a few times. Daddy's skills were the difference between fiery crash and a close call on some family vacations. The way he taught me to drive still echoes in my head from time to time in sticky situations.

Daddy kinda feels like the outsider sometimes. Unlike Mama, my brother, and I, he doesn't like to read or think about big things. He does not think highly of himself. He struggled to finish high school, but his children both have graduate degrees. His wife at times has been a writer, a painter, a minister. Daddy does not see his ability to build over half of our house, or to fix most things as impressive. He thinks he's a dim bulb compared to all the shining stars in his family. But, he has his 27 years safe driving.

Until yesterday. It was a fender bender. The witnesses left, so no one to testify to whose fault it was, and the accident is inconclusive. No one was hurt, thank God. He didn't get fired, but only because he does have so many years of service under his belt. Now, for 12 whole months, one slip up, one ticket, one accident...on the job or off, and he loses his job. And definitely no more cool vacation, no more perusing the catalog. Daddy saying things like, "Driving is the one thing I'm good at, and now I'm not good at that."

I cried when I found out. Not out of disappointment. But out of shared sadness at the hurt, the injury of something key to one's identity. But I can't wait to get home for Thanksgiving. To give Daddy a hug. To tell him, no matter how many years of safe driving he has or doesn't have, that he has one of the most amazing accomplisments of all: that I feel completely loved and honored to have such an amazing man be my Daddy.