Thérèse of Lisieux often called her father her “King.” To the outside world, Louis Martin was a respected watchmaker and jeweler, dignified and steady. But inside their home in Lisieux, he was something softer. He adored his daughters openly. He prayed with them. He listened to them. He carried their emotions gently instead of dismissing them.

Thérèse was deeply sensitive as a child. In her own autobiography, Story of a Soul, she writes about how easily she cried, how small wounds felt enormous, how affection meant everything to her. Her mother died when she was only four, and that loss intensified her sensitivity. Louis did not shame her for it. He did not tell her to toughen up. He made space for her tears. He treated her fragility as something precious rather than something inconvenient.

When I think of Thérèse and her father, I cannot help but think of mine.

My dad was a commercial pilot. He traveled constantly. There were stretches when he would be gone for days, crossing time zones while I went to school and soccer practice and piano lessons. But when he was home, he was fully home. His presence was intentional. Tender. Attentive.

I was his only daughter. We called ourselves “Dad and Dudes,” short for Dudette. It was our private little title, playful and affectionate. Even when he walked through the door exhausted from travel, he carried this warmth about him that made me feel seen.

He supported my passions without hesitation. Soccer games became his events just as much as mine. He would drive me to practice, camera ready, and then stand on the sidelines capturing action shots like I was already a professional athlete. I can still picture him adjusting his lens, crouching slightly, determined not to miss a moment. Those drives to and from practice were sacred spaces — windows down, music low, conversations flowing easily.

At home, he would sit in the living room chair while I ate breakfast, looking at me in that quiet, doting way that only fathers can. When I practiced piano, he would walk over and play the right-hand melody while I worked through the left. It felt like partnership. Like he wasn’t just watching my life unfold — he was stepping into it with me.

When my art teacher knocked me down an entire letter grade, he did not shrug it off. He defended me. He believed in my talent when I was too young to defend myself fully. When friends hurt my feelings and my sensitive nature felt like a liability, he didn’t dismiss it. He would sit down with me after school and talk it through until I stopped crying. He gave my emotions dignity.

Thérèse had that too. Louis Martin delighted in her. He brought her on little outings and called her his “little queen.” When she struggled with scruples and hypersensitivity, he helped anchor her. His tenderness formed her understanding of God as Father. Because Louis was gentle, she could imagine a God who was gentle. Because he loved her through her tears, she could believe that heaven did not roll its eyes at her fragility.

It is no coincidence that Thérèse built her spirituality on spiritual childhood. She trusted God the way a beloved daughter trusts her father. That trust did not appear out of thin air. It was modeled for her in the living room, at the dinner table, on quiet walks with her “King.”

When my father died when I was seventeen, something in me felt abruptly untethered. The man who steadied my emotions, who validated my sensitivity, who partnered with my passions — he was suddenly gone. The grief was sharp and disorienting. There is something particularly destabilizing about losing a father young, especially when he was the safe place you ran to.

For years, I have carried both gratitude and ache. Gratitude for the tenderness I received. Ache for the milestones he did not see. The games he did not photograph. The recitals he did not accompany. The conversations we did not get to finish.

Reading about Thérèse and Louis has helped me see something I did not fully articulate before: a good father leaves a permanent imprint. Louis’ love did not disappear when he grew ill and eventually died. It shaped Thérèse’s soul permanently. It influenced the way she saw God. It strengthened her ability to endure suffering later in life.

In the same way, my father’s love did not vanish when his life ended. It lives in the way I approach the piano. In the way I defend my own creativity. In the way I honor my sensitivity instead of suppressing it. His tenderness became part of the architecture of my faith.

Thérèse teaches us that sensitivity is not weakness. It is capacity. The capacity to love deeply. The capacity to feel keenly. The capacity to trust completely. And when that sensitivity is nurtured by a father who sees it as gift rather than flaw, it becomes fertile soil for holiness.

I sometimes imagine Thérèse smiling at the way Louis used to look at her — the way my dad used to look at me from that living room chair. There is something profoundly healing in knowing that holy men can be soft. That fatherhood can be protective and playful. That strength and tenderness are not opposites.

Maybe that is why the Little Way feels so personal to me. It is the way of a daughter who knew she was loved. And even though my earthly father’s life ended when I was seventeen, the foundation he built has not crumbled.

Love that steady does not die easily. It becomes the way you walk forward.