My baby girl Sarah got married last week. And honestly, I didn’t really feel anything. Until today.
I arrived in town on Thursday, my wife had been there with our two little adopted girls since that Monday earlier. The man Sarah’s marrying already had a 3 year old girl and a 2 year old boy from a previous relationship. So my wife was taking care of them as well as our girls so Sarah could focus on the wedding details.
We had rented an AirBNB and crammed our family into it for the duration. It’s weird to stay in a home that doesn’t feel like “home”. It’s a bit like being dropped into some else’s life.
My new son-in-law seems like a good enough guy. But it wouldn’t have mattered, because his son (my new grandson) had me suckered in the first time we met. For some reason this two-year old blonde kid gravitated to me. He is everything you expect in a 2-year old: wild, uncontrollable, adorable. And all he seemed to want was me to carrying him around. He’d see me and run to me with his arms in the air. Who can resist that?
So it didn’t matter if I approved of his dad – I was already hooked.
As soon as Sarah got engaged, she came up with “Grandparent names” for my wife and me. My wife is called “Lolly” and I’m “Pop”. Get it? “LollyPop”.
What appropriate names, since we’re both suckers like all grandparents.
How did the wedding go? Well, it’s over, and they’re married. That’s really all that matters. That’s what matters after a long-distance run or a similar endurance contest – you finished.
I know I’m supposed to sound more positive, but weddings are tough for most everyone involved. They are sort of like Christmas in that everyone gets high, unrealistic expectations about how wonderful they’re supposed to be. But they end up being a lot of work. Add two toddlers to the mix and you’ve got chaos on a grand scale.
After the wedding comes the reception. This is where for some reason you as the father of the bride are expected to buy everyone supper. Not sure who came up with that idea, but I’m sure it wasn’t another dad. But the upside is you get one dance with your daughter where you try not to cry.
Even though my daughter was beautiful and the song was poignant, I didn’t tear up. Maybe that’s because while we were dancing, someone was stealing my daughter’s honeymoon fund people had been contributing toward. Evidently, some jerk went through the little box on the wedding gift table and relieved the happy couple of about $2000+.
After scavenging some money together, the couple set off for a honeymoon in the East Tennessee mountains. And so we watched their kids for the next week. We drove them down to Florida to stay with us. Our two little girls were great, but there were personality conflicts at times and lots of toddler drama.
After a week with all four kids, my wife and I are completely exhausted.
My daughter and her new husband flew in yesterday to stay with us for a day and retrieve their kids. I watched Sarah take over as mom to these two, admiring how strong she is and what a terrific mom and young woman she is. I guess she learned motherhood from the best – my wife.
When she told me she wanted to marry Brandon, it was right after the toddler’s birth mother had abandoned the kids with him and walked away. She was pitching in to care for the kids, suddenly becoming a mom. I told her that, while I admired her, being the mother to these kids was not her responsibility. I didn’t want her to spend her whole life doing nothing more than being a mom to two kids who had known a chaotic existence up to that point.
The kids needed her, but I didn’t want them to become her whole life…just like my wife had chosen to make our kids her whole life. When I asked her what she really wanted, becoming a mom and wife was it. Nothing more. Frankly, I’m amazed. I can’t understand a life so devoted to others.
Sure, I’m a dad, but I have a career as well. She was sacrificing herself utterly and totally. I was sad and proud at the same time.
Finally today at 5PM they packed the kids in a car and drove off to their new home back in Tennessee. We’re both sad to see them go and exhausted. But finally all the permanence of the changes that had just taken place, the sacrifice and the beauty of it, the pride over what my daughter was doing – everything set in on me.
As we waved to the car shuffling off down the road, the tears came to my eyes for the first time. At that moment I finally understood how everything had changed and nothing would ever be the same. My baby girl was gone and had turned into a woman. Oh, but what a woman she has become. That was enough to make a father cry.
Sure, I’ve actually got two more girls to raise and watch drive away. But she was the baby of our first set, the children of my youth. Today finally feels more like the closing of a chapter and the turning of a page I can never re-read again. This part of my story’s over.
Nothing will ever be the same…at least not until the next car stuffed with all my hopes and dreams drives slowly down the road and out of sight.
