A Daddy’s Wish come true put into words
By all accounts, his dream to have a baby girl came reasonably priced.
He’s not sure on the exact amount, but estimates his multiple, 25-cent donations into the wishing fountain over the course of a week cost him about $3.50. A deal by any standards.
A few years ago, Brent Smith, 40-year-old dad to Ava and Ethan, was vacationing in Arizona with his then pregnant wife, Alicia.
Brent had a wish. A big wish. “I wanted a girl,” he says. “I was ready for something different.”
Growing up with a younger brother and playing defence for the St. Catharines Royals travel hockey team, Brent knew guys.
And he really, really wanted a little girl.
So every time he walked past the fountain, he’d toss in a quarter.
His wish came true.
Ava is seven years old. Dad and daughter play Minecraft together. She builds. He watches. And Ava is his assistant behind the barbecue, grilling wonderful family dinners.
“All dads of daughters, they want to be their daughter’s hero,” he says.
When Ava was about a year old, Brent started writing his thoughts and feelings, of the anticipation on the birth of Ava. He read to her at night, but couldn’t find a book that captured a father’s sentimentality, the feelings inside his heart. In the back of his mind, he imagined a picture book.
And for about six years, that’s where the story ended.
Beautiful, heartfelt words written on his cellphone’s memo app. “I was too afraid to put it out,” he
says. “I’m just a dad.”
In the meantime, Brent continued to write poetry and personal letters to family members, just to let them know how important they are in his life. He prints off copies and hand delivers them.
“You never know. Life is so quick. Why keep those feelings inside?”
Then one day he thought of his book. Sitting inside his phone.
Brent grew up in St. Catharines and earned a sociology degree at Brock University. He lives in Caledonia and works with people who live with acquired brain injuries.
He showed his book first to co-workers. When they liked it, he summoned enough courage to send it out to several publishing companies. He hopes to have Daddy’s Wish published by Friesen-Press, but first he needs to raise some $3,700 though a Kickstarter campaign. With a few days left, he has about $1,500 left to go.
His cousin, Spencer Duffy, has done all the illustrations. He’s an illustrator from Toronto who has worked on kids TV shows including The Fairly OddParents, Bunsen is a Beast, and The Ridonculous Race.
All that’s left, is to book the publisher.
He hopes the book will encourage important conversations and deepen relationships between daddies and daughters. Many moments in the book are drawn his own experience, from ultrasound to delivery to holding his baby girl.
In his book, there’s an illustration of mom- and dad-to-be inside their car with larger-the-life smiles. That could easily have been Brent and Alicia, in the parking garage at the Hamilton hospital, calling, texting and emailing friends and family immediately after learning their baby was a girl.
The next illustration shows them shouting the news from a tree top. While Brent didn’t climb any trees, it meant to represent his inner exhilaration, he says.
Ava especially enjoys the illustration of the baby in-utero, holding a road map leading to the eventual exit. “That’s me,” she says, smiling.
Brent tells his daughter that it’s her “while she was in her apartment waiting to come out.”
“I try to bring a little levity and humility.”
He was just as excited when his son was born and enjoys watching their relationship grow. One day, he hopes to write more books, one for his son and others for marginalized youth.
He was the first to hold Ava, skin to skin, in the delivery room at the Hamilton hospital.
“To finally have her and that be my finish line was a huge relief,” he says.
“I couldn’t emit more love holding her.”
He considers the book an ode to all daughters and fathers.
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To donate to Brent Smith’s campaign visit https://www.kickstarter.com/ projects/204720887/ a-funny-and-heartwarmingstory-for-all-fathers-and
There are various donation options.