When we returned to view the lace, we entered the store with some trepidation. I was running out of time and needed the lace soon. Dad peered through his progressives and softly fingered the embroidered tulle. It was creamy, light, elegant, the perfect ending to a good dream. It was the kind of lace that would complement the kind of jewelry Dad would buy. Maybe he would help me choose some earrings and a necklace. I clinched the deal.

In the end, he had his say on the lace, but not on the necklace. Some weeks before the wedding, my mother opened her magic garden for me again. I slowly took my favorite ivory rose. This time, it trembled in my hand. This time, we let the stories sleep.

The rose matched the lace overcoat of my wedding gown. It looked, in fact, like the tulle and the rose had grown together in a place as beautiful as Dad’s imagination and as tender as his care for his women, Mom and me.

But Dad never got to see the finished product. On my wedding day, my brother took my arm to lead me down the aisle. By then, the flowers marking Dad’s fresh grave had wilted in the Sierra Nevada wind. Two months previously, Dad had died of a massive heart attack.

Until my wedding day, I never knew that intense joy and pain could sit side by side like our guests in the neatly ordered rows of folding chairs. Nothing could stamp out the happiness of marrying the love of my life, and nothing could smooth away the ache of missing Dad.

Yet for all the pain, Dad was present. His embroidered tulle - no drapes or tablecloth lace - fell gracefully over my wedding gown. His rose gleamed at my throat. His love had swaddled me since infancy, affirming my every step until this day.

Given another unfortunate scenario, I preferred this one. My dad could have been smiling in all the photographs but frowning in my memories. He could have footed the bill but kicked me out of his busy life. He could have hugged me but never communicated with my soul. He could have waltzed with me and yet been a foreigner to my life.

I’m so glad I didn’t miss out on his touch in the lace.

I’m so glad I didn’t miss out on his touch in the deepest fabric of my being.

Elizabeth Clark Wickham looks forward to meeting her dad again in a very real place called Heaven. She directs the Spanish magazines Mujerdehoy.org and Cristianadehoy.com while living in Austria with her husband and toddler.