Originally published by The Clifton Courier, June 12, 2019

It’s Father’s Day, I’m pretty disorganisaed and I’m at work today so I can’t see Dad. My father is a big character in my life and makes for excellent content. His…lifestyle choices are very entertaining and documenting his way has earned him quite the following on my Instagram account (which is to say, the people who already follow me enjoy the posts about Macca). I’ve chalked up a lot of well-lilied Insta posts about him throughout the years, but I think the column below is my favourite thing I’ve written about him. I posted it on this blog more than a year ago but I’m feeling sappy and lazy enough to give it another run.

Waving is a big thing in our family.

Obviously we’re big on the finger wave to the stop-go person going through road works. And we appreciate a courtesy wave from drivers we make room for when they need to change lanes under pressure.

But the Maguire family is all about the send-off wave.

I’m not entirely sure where it began, but somewhere along the line we started following guests out to their cars, gathering at a clump at the end of the driveway and waving until they got half-way down the street.

As children, my sisters and I would take this a step further and run barefoot alongside our friends’ cars as they were picked up from sleepovers, evoking the drama of a WWI nurse keeping up with her beloved soldier along the platform, waving until his train was out of sight – only, rather than being restricted to the confines of a train platform, we stopped when we reached the patch of prickles.

Sometimes the send-off can put you in a bit of a fluster, especially if you’re like me and take a while to get set up for a long journey. When you’re putting on the right playlist, looking for sunnies and trying to wedge your water bottle in an easy to reach spot, having the whole family standing there waiting for you to bugger off can be a bit annoying.

But the older we all get, the less of an annoyance it has become.

This thought struck me last week. I was back in town for a few hours last Tuesday, deciding to kick off my mid week-weekend with a cheeky cervical screening (let this be a reminder for anyone who has been putting off a routine check: just bloody get it over and done with, for heaven’s sake). I popped into the Maguire house for a catch up and cup or three of tea.

In case you have blocked it from your memory, it was aggressively cold last Tuesday.* My parents had shut up the house and were keeping warm by the fireplace. So when it came time for me to leave that afternoon, I expected to bid my farewells in the kitchen, especially to Dad.

* This was obviously a couple of Tuesdays ago now. And, in the off chance you weren’t in the township of Clifton on the Tuesday in question, it was real fucken cold. Like, put on your grainiest Aussie drawl cold. 

My father dislikes the cold more than he hates the way people say they’re going to the “bathroom” when they’re actually going to the toilet (I personally don’t have a problem with people finding a polite way to say “I’m off to excrete some waste” but that seems to matter to Macca, who takes a tough stance against the Americanisation of our culture).

He really, really doesn’t like the cold.

But, sure enough, both parents made their way out of the warmth and through the garage-cum-lounge-room, which is much colder (“you can feel the difference with that insulation”) than the rest of the house. Dad even ventured outside – wearing a woollen jacket, mind you.

It’s an unnecessary gesture; saying goodbye at the door would absolutely suffice. But, geez, it’s pretty nice, I thought to myself as I drove off.

It reminded me of the time a few years back, when Dad was dropping me at the Brisbane airport to catch the plane that would take me to my new life Sydney. We were running slightly late and I hopped out at the drop-off zone feeling flustered, saying a quick goodbye because there were cars everywhere.  I rushed to the check-in counter and then waited quietly at the gate. I’d assumed Dad, who finds the traffic of Toowoomba hectic, would have bolted from the madness of the airport. But then I saw a battered, dusty Akubra coming up the escalators and there was Macca, ready to wave me off.

Despite the traffic, the ridiculous car park fees and having to muck around with the bloody paid parking machines, the old Maguire tradition continued. He was there waiting with me as the rest of the passengers boarded, watched on as I finally gave the flight attendant my ticket and waved the whole time I walked down gangway and out of sight.

Again, the send-off wave is completely unnecessary and can be a quite a bit of effort, but geez, it’s really bloody nice.