Dad brought his daughter’s stuffed animal gift to work every day.
Parents love all of the gifts that they receive from their children. For Pat Holmes, he recently surprised his daughter Samantha by showing her a gift she gave him 18 years ago. Samantha now 20 years old was working on a paper for one of her college courses when her dad came into the room.
Dad surprises his daughter…
Her father said to her, “Close your eyes and reach your hand in here.”
She didn’t know what was going on, but she did as she was instructed and found a stuffed animal she gave him when she was two years old. She told her story on Reddit and let people in on the touching moment.
She said to her dad, “You still have it!”
“Of course I still have it,” he told her.
Pat and Samantha Holmes.
Samantha gave her dad a stuffed beluga whale in case he missed her while he was at work. She said that he could give it a hug at work if he needed it to help him get through the day.
Pat has been taking the whale to his law office ever since. Samantha took a photo of her dad with the bag she took a picture and posted it on social media.
She wrote this caption with the image she posted:
“When I was two I gave my Dad a stuffed beluga whale to keep in his work bag so that if he ever missed me he could hold it and think of me. 18 years later, my Dad has just informed me he still brings my beluga whale to work with him every day.”
She learned that he would take it on business trips as well.
Pat told The Washington Post, “I’ve taken it to work every single day I’ve gone to work. I’d put it in my suitcase and not tell anybody it was there. And then I’d put it back in my gym bag.”
The whale’s or turtle’s backstory?
Both father and daughter forget how the whale was gifted, but they did learn something about the stuffed animal. It wasn’t a whale. It was a turtle. Someone on Reddit told them that it was a turtle and not a beluga whale. Samantha thought it was a whale when she was 2, so it was known in the Holmes house as the beluga whale.
Pat rarely took out the stuffed animal at work, but it helped him thing of his daughter and son, Jack.
Holmes says, “When she gave it to me, she told me to take it out if I felt lonely. I don’t like to be away from the kids, so I like to have it. I think of it as a part of them being with me.”
Holmes recently showed his daughter the turtle last week because his gym bag needed to be thrown out. That was when he wanted to share with her how long the turtle has been in there.
Samantha and her dad, Pete.
Samantha says, “He’s always been very sweet like that, but that’s a long time.”
Pat talks about family, “You have good days and bad days, but if you don’t have family, you have nothing else.” That was one of the reasons why he brought the stuffed animal to work for all those years.
“You hear a lot of people don’t have a close relationship with their dads, or their dads aren’t really expressive,” Samantha Holmes said. “I’m really grateful for how close we are.”
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