Humor by John Christmann
The Father Of The Bride
My good friend Joe has three gorgeous daughters. His youngest just graduated from high school. His second daughter just graduated from college. His oldest daughter got married last weekend. It’s been a long summer for Joe. He speaks in short sentences. He drools a lot.
My family attended the wedding in California. We joined the large gathering of relatives and friends who traveled from all over the country to share in the joyous event. Joe was the recipient of much back slapping, his wife endless cheek pecks. Like most everyone else in attendance, we have known them forever. My wife was in their wedding, his wife was in ours. That’s how I met Joe.
Amid all the embraces and well wishing I managed to say hello myself. Joe gave me a big warm man hug. He was genuinely glad to see me. But I couldn’t help notice that he had a faraway look in his eyes, the distracted look of someone who is desperately trying to figure out what he is missing. Like a corsage maybe. Or his wallet. Or perhaps his pants.
I asked Joe if there was anything I could do to help him. I asked sheepishly, like a house guest who wanders into the kitchen just as dinner is being served. Joe looked around at the large number of people who were congregating happily near an open bar. “Cash.” he said laughing.
I gave him a gin and tonic instead.
I learned later that he was indeed missing something: his house key. Late that night, after the wedding guests had long since departed and the band replaced by a chorus of whining vacuum cleaners, he broke into his house through an upstairs window wearing his tuxedo. This was one of many photos of Joe that didn’t make the wedding album.
I asked Joe if he would have some time to relax after the wedding was over. I asked this knowing that he was packing one daughter off to Denver where she was moving and the other to Oregon where she would be entering college. He paused for a second to consider my question.
“No” he said simply. He laughed, but the distant look was still in his eyes.
And then someone slapped him on the shoulder. He turned and embraced a couple I did not know. More good friends. Relatives perhaps. Probably not the caterers. And then he was consumed by the mingling crowd.
The ceremony took place in an open, hacienda-style courtyard set against the Pacific. Joe walked down a sweeping stone stair case with his daughter’s arm in his. If he had been missing his pants it would not have mattered. All eyes were on the bride. She was radiant and golden, replacing the California sun which was slowly settling into the ocean behind them.
If anybody had looked hard at Joe they would have seen a man graying slightly at the temples, with lines around his face indicating just how much he laughed in life. No one would have mistaken him for anything other than a proud father. But it seemed to me that after years of self-effacing humor, in this one moment Joe could find nothing in himself to laugh at. It showed in his glistening eyes. Something was definitely missing.
And then, meeting her groom at the bottom of the stair case, Joe’s daughter left his arm for the arm of the deserving man she would spend the rest of her life with. Just like that. After twenty-four years, she formally stepped out of Joe’s life into another. Her own. As the photos snapped, Joe moved out of the frame to join his beautiful wife, and hand in hand they watched their eldest daughter marry with the rest of us.
I always cry at weddings.
It’s a shame that we still use the term “giving the bride away”, as if our daughters are nothing but property. If that were true, we would probably sell them off the moment they exert their formidable will.
Our daughters are our flesh and blood. They fill us with joy and steal our hearts. They twist us. They kiss us. They manipulate us. They mature and give us poetry and heartburn. And we love them for it. And when they marry, we want to be sure they find someone who will cherish them as much as we do.
We don’t just give them away.
About a year ago the groom called Joe to inform him of his intention to marry. It was respectful gesture, one largely ignored these days, and indicative of the young man’s character. The groom said a familiar hello and identified himself politely over the cell phone, but the connection was not very good. “Who is this?” said Joe.
The groom repeated his name, but Joe still couldn’t make out who was calling. So he hung up.
No, we don’t just give them away.
I danced with my daughter at the wedding. She is only nine. She still considers weddings to be fairy tales, with beautiful princess brides marrying dashing princes in shining armor. Frankly, so did my wife until she married me.
But in the magical kingdom of marriage, at some point the drawbridge eases down and we discover life outside the castle walls. The trick is to embrace the bridge, not the castle. Such is the knowing nod behind wise and heartfelt toasts at countless weddings.
But at this wedding Joe toasted a different bridge. His words were fully assembled, thoughtful, playful, reflective. He told of playing Poohsticks with his daughter when she was a little girl, throwing twigs from a bridge into a gently flowing river, then racing across to see who’s twig emerged from underneath the bridge first. No matter who won or lost, the twigs always floated on.
This was his test as a father he explained, to stand on the bridge one last time and trust that he had given his twig all she needed to float endlessly down life’s river, wherever it rolled.
He still had a faraway, distracted look in his eyes. But in that instant, holding my daughter’s hand, I understood exactly what it was he was missing.
© 2009 Dadinthebox.com