My daughter has no memory of this, but I used to show off what I considered her superhuman balance at barbecues by laying on my back and having her stand on the balls of my feet.

She would stand up straight and then stretch out her arms from her pink bathing suit like some sort of circus performer riding around the ring on a white horse.

"Ta-Dah!" she'd say, before taking a little bow.

She had an innate sense of balance — and bravery. As she grew older — and the risks and dangers became more real — my own balance was tested as I watched her face new risks and make her own decisions, while fighting the urge to run her life.

Years later, my daughter had just taken possession of her first car — a hand-me-down from her grandfather — when my phone rang late at night, jerking me awake.

"First of all Daddy," the call began, "everyone's OK. Nobody's hurt."

I was suddenly wide awake as she calmly recited the details of getting rear-ended, the condition of the car and the status of the other driver.

I decided to let her handle the situation herself.

Over the next several days, she learned to deal with police reports and insurance estimates and other boring-but-important details of being a grown-up for the first time in her life.

Then last year, she enrolled at the University of Hawai'i and eagerly moved into the dorms.

Parking permits weren't yet available for first-year dorm students, so she had to park her brand new SUV on Dole Street, which is notorious for car break-ins and vandalism, especially in the first hectic days of a new school year.

None of it was comforting, especially since my job includes working with a police scanner inches from my head in The Advertiser newsroom.

I already knew that someone had broken into the freshman dorms and sexually assaulted a female student while young women like my daughter were moving in.

I had actually composed a list of rationalizations about why I would be checking up on her in the middle of the night and cruising Dole Street guarding her car.

Eventually, I decided that it wasn't worth upsetting our relationship by satisfying my fatherly instincts.

Those first tense days settled into a routine, followed by renewed and even more serious talk about her desire to become a nurse. I pushed her to pursue a nursing internship this summer, so she could see firsthand how her dream compares to reality.

If nothing else, I reasoned, getting a dose of the real world in her first summer of college would give her time to switch paths.

Instead, midway through her nursing internship at one of Hawai'i's biggest hospitals, my daughter was loving her life.

She admired the doctors and nurses as much as she loved working with the patients.

As she settled in to hospital work, she then moved into her first apartment in a neighborhood full of what I assume are sketchy characters with sordid criminal histories.

And so, once again, I'm forced to do what I've done all of my daughter's life: Watch her stretch out her arms and stand on her own.

Ta-Dah.