Peck was right!

For years now, my girlfriends have encouraged me to write a book titled Peck Was Right. See, they remember with me all of the times I complained about how he'd try to tell me what to do, how to think and how I should feel about things. Fighting for my independence from him and, I hope, being too much like him to accept anyone else's opinion, I would grumble about how he thought he knew what was right for me and how he just didn't understand.

Some time in my forties, I began to remark to Suzi, especially, that "Peck was right," after all. Soon it got to be a widespread joke, and the joke was on me, Miss Know-It-All who didn't really understand how the world worked nearly as well as my dad did. As my experiences multiplied, so did my "Peck was right" remarks.

I did get the chance to tell him, maybe five years ago, how often I realized that he had been right all along. I hope he took some comfort in that and that it made up in some little way for the defiance and toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose showdowns we sometimes had. I hope he knew before he died how wise I thought he was, how touched I was that he worried about all of us still, how darned smart I thought he was -- and mostly how much I loved him, no matter how opinionated, stubborn or ornery he was. He was my biggest fan and cheerleader, even when I was stretching myself too far over the safety net. And I knew he would always be there to encourage me to pick myself up and try again.