Thursday, September 25, 2014

Proud Papas

September 25, 2014

Tonight at the girls' swim meet I talked with the father of a girl who dove for the team till she graduated last year. She had full scholarship to a number of colleges, but chose to enter the Naval Academy instead. Her grandfather and father had both served in the Navy, in WWII and Vietnam, and she wanted to carry on the tradition. It's been tough, but she is determined to succeed. We talked about how diving, with its strenuous flips and twists combined with the subjectivity of the judging process, had prepared her for the rigors of the Academy.

He told me one story of the physical tests she had to pass, one of which was sixty situps in two minutes. She did her sixty, but when she stopped, they failed her, telling her that three of them weren't good enough. She passed everything else, so it wasn't really an issue, but two weeks later she told them she wanted to retest. She did eighty in under two minutes, till they wouldn't let her do any more. Now she wants to go for the men's test.

He was clearly and justifiably proud of her. Instead of choosing the easier path of college, she is carrying on the family pride, and rising to the challenge of military life. He gets to go down to visit her in two weeks, and is so excited.

Watching your kids grow up and begin to make their own way in the world is a satisfying, yet at times terrifying task. I know there are parents who don't deserve the title, but we worked hard at it, guiding, teaching, correcting, challenging, and most importantly, showing the way by our own imperfect example. Then comes the day when all of that parenting faces the ultimate test, when we send them off to their independent lives.

Fifteen years ago, I stood at the front of the church beside a beautiful young woman who would in a few short minutes change her name from Bailey to Andersen. It was, to be sure, a most unusual wedding. Her brothers stood before us, greeting the guests and officiating the preliminaries. Weddings don't normally begin with comedic entertainment, but put Nate and Matt together for a momentous occasion, and you never know what you'll get. Jessie got a touch of Monty Python combined with a dash of Chevy Chase. The guests were certainly in a celebrative mood by the time I moved from father of the bride to officiating pastor.

I can't remember just when it all started, other than it was sometime when Jess and Todd were dating when I first told her that although I wouldn't always be her best, I would always be her first love. From that time sixteen or seventeen years ago, emails, letters, and texts have always ended with "AYFL." At the time of her wedding, the song "Butterfly Kisses" was popular on Christian radio. It was a good song, but I think my "Always Your First Love, written for her wedding," is better. I sang it to her for the first time that afternoon.

Entrusting your only daughter to a relative stranger who hasn't loved her nearly as long as you (and, you are sure, not nearly as well), is a daunting task, but over the years I've witnessed too many times when parents were unable to let go, and their interference is always deleterious, and often fatal to the newlyweds. The greatest gift a father can give his daughter is threefold: his love for God, his love for her mother, and his loving attention to her as she is growing up. Sadly, too many girls are looking to boys mostly interested in their own hormonal fulfillment for the love and attention their fathers should have given them. The hardest, but ultimately most important gift a father and mother can give is to release their child to the love and care of another. I can't imagine doing that when the child's choice is less than ideal. Fortunately, we didn't have to do so.

Talking with this proud papa was fun. It is always a pleasure to see a parent justifiably proud of their kids, and profoundly sad when they cannot. Our goal as parents has always been to let our kids stand on our shoulders that they might see farther and accomplish more than we did. It doesn't matter to us how much money they make as long as they make a family that knows what it means to put into life more than they take out, to live with integrity, love, faith, and forgiveness. We're blessed to be seeing this with our own eyes as we honor Jessie and Todd on their fifteenth. Happy Andersen Anniversary!

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