Father of
the Bride
So then he
that giveth her in marriage
doeth
well. . . .
--
1 Corinthians 7:38a
It was exactly one week after our eldest
daughter's wedding. We were sitting in the youngest daughter's piano recital.
Maddy, 9, sat with back erect, frowning in concentration, dwarfed by the piano,
long ponytail swinging. She was banging out the cartoon theme from "Looney
Tunes" as her recital piece.
And her father sat there next to me BLUBBERING!!!!
Geez! It isn't THAT bad!
And anyway, geez! What's to cry about in "Looney
Tunes"?!?
Then I finally got it: his paternal emotional
dam had finally been breached.
I had been wondering how he got through the previous
wedding weekend without tears. Those strong fatherly feelings were in there,
all right. But he kept a stiff upper lip, and was a genial host and joyous FOB
(that's Father of the Bride, to the uninitiated).
But ahhh . . . delayed reaction! Seeing the
littlest Williams daughter at the recital going through that familiar rite of
childhood reminded the FOB of his first little daughter at the same age so many
years ago. And suddenly, all his joy in witnessing the little puckered face we
named Jordan transform into a magnificent, beautiful, radiant bride just came
spilling out.
So the FOB just had to SOB, a week later, during
"Looney Tunes."
The other parents shot him puzzled glances and thought,
"My, what a . . . SENSITIVE . . . dad!!!"
They got that right.
And oh, how this father - like most fathers -
maybe ALL fathers - wanted so much to get his job right. He wanted to be the
kind of a father that his child deserved, so when he married her off, he could
feel that he had done everything he possibly could for her. I'd say he did all
that, bigtime.
Holding a
minutes-old Jordan Jennifer.
It all happened so fast. The whole thing is
surreal. Married?!? So soon?!? Wasn't she JUST born? Wasn't that just YESTERDAY
that she came barreling down the hill on her Big Wheel, beaming at her
new-found independence? Wasn't it just LAST NIGHT when she called from college
with a completely new and different tone in her voice, and told us that she had
"met someone"?!?
It all happened in a snap. The years whizzed by.
All the countless things my beloved did for her, as the responsible and loving
father he was, are mostly forgotten.
But each and every act of love and duty are very
much still there - invested in her heart, and reflected in her eyes.
So when he turned her over to her bridegroom on her
wedding day, he was turning over a big part of himself, too . . . and he was elated
to do it.
That's
Franco's dad in between the bridegroom and the FOB.
I wish everybody would focus on
fathers like these - the quiet ones, the good ones, the ones who go by the
rules, and are man enough to say "no" enough.
I mean the responsible ones, who keep their
promises, stay out of trouble, who go without so the kids can have, who teach
them everything they know and a lot of things they didn't think they knew, who
are humble enough to learn from their kids, who listen, who rassle with them, and
make funny faces with them, and go out in the back yard and play catch even
though they're drained, go to their parent-teacher conferences and sit on those
little bitty chairs looking ridiculous, and stretch out on the cool grass on a
summer's evening with them and just talk and dream and look up at the stars.
Dads like these are the ones who point us where we
should be looking: up. A good dad is the God model every child deserves.
We need to do everything we can to encourage fathers
like these, and develop as many of them as we can. The more like the Father in
heaven that our earthly dads can be, the easier it is for each of us to understand
who our real Father is.
A good father gives us a picture of how our
Heavenly Father has been there with each of us, through our journeys from
childhood and beyond, every step of the way.
It's beyond a blessing to be the maternal
partner in a pairing like this. It's better than anything. Anything! I'm the
gabby one in the family, but I can't even begin to explain how it felt to see
my two beloveds, father and daughter, dancing on this night of transformation
for them both, knowing that she is who she is largely because of him . . . and
vice versa. They kind of grew each other up. And I couldn't love them more.
Jordan's
smile is brightest when she's with her dad
or her new
husband, Franco, dancing with his mother at right.
Luckily, my mother found this poem, clipped from
a magazine decades ago around the time we four kids were getting married. It
sums things up perfectly:
WEDDING WORDS
By Maureen Cannon
The day is hers and, oh, it is
As clearly jubilantly his!
But, Dear, it's ours as well in ways
She cannot know, not yet. The phrase
"Who gives this woman? Echoes deep
In both our hearts. We do - who keep
Some special part of her as one
By one her steps match his, this son
We've - gladly - gained.
The
day is his,
The day is hers. What marriage is
Is ours, though. We have lived it and
We know, as they will. Take my hand
And hold it, Dear, with joy, with pride. . . .
I love you, Father of the Bride. †
