A moment of tears, more moments of joy

A joyous walk down the aisle.

I didn’t cry.

At least, not coming down the aisle as I had been instructed by my daughter, the bride.

But I shed enough of tears as Father of the Bride during the weekend that saw my daughter Elizabeth become Mrs. Fournier.

The first set of tears came before Saturday’s wedding, at the rehearsal dinner, when a video of pictures, assembled by the Mother of the Groom and Mother of the Bride, was played.

As quickly as those images flashed on the screen is about as quickly as a lifetime with Elizabeth seemed at that moment. So quick. It almost felt I had left something behind -- something I should have done, something I could have done better, some life lesson I should have given.

It was a time travel of emotion, bouncing from past to present to future - looking at the images and thinking about when they were children, to seeing them now as marrying adults, to thinking ahead of them as parents.

No amount of levees were going to hold back the tears.

But that meant I was fine for the big reveal of the bride - Elizabeth on my left arm as the church doors swung open and we made our way down the aisle to a light show of flashing cameras. At that point, I was having way too much fun -- with all eyes on Elizabeth -- to think about crying.

The only other moment of tears came during the vows - as Elizabeth and John said their I do’s.

The rest of the day was too much of a party, too joyous a celebration to think about tears.

It’s amazing how an event -- for which there seemed to be such a long lead time, for which there was so much planning and discussing -- could go by as quickly as it did.

It’s taken me several days to return to the routine of being at home, being at the computer working.

Part of it was the emotional exhaustion. We all just needed some time to process the events, recover from them.

Part of it was constantly scanning Facebook looking for the latest posting of wedding pictures. I swear we crashed the Facebook server at one point because so many pictures were being uploaded at one time.

When I finished walking Elizabeth down the aisle, just before the hand-off to John, I leaned over, gave her a kiss and said, “Hold onto this moment forever.”

It was a moment of unbridled joy, one we could all do well to hold onto forever.

Job one: Don’t cry

Elizabeth and John
engagement photo

My daughter Elizabeth tells me I have two primary responsibilities next Saturday when she gets married:

1. Walk her down the aisle;
2. Don’t cry as I walk her down the aisle.

I guarantee I’ll be at least 50 percent successful.

Elizabeth doesn’t want me to cry because if I cry then she’s afraid she’ll cry and ruin her make-up.

I get it. Job one as FOB - father of the bride - is don’t cry.

Elizabeth’s mother had very good advice for me when told of my instructions: “You won’t cry. You’ll be too busy smiling.”

True enough.

It’s indicative of the roller coaster of emotions that accompany this wedding. My little girl -- who just barely grew out of playing with her Barbie House, who just barely learned how to drive a car, who just barely graduated from high school -- is getting married.

She’s marrying a terrific guy who is a perfect complement - a yang to her yin.

I just have to separate the 28-year-old woman from the daddy’s little girl.

As FOB (which, by the way is much more preferable to the SOB I’ve been called at times) I am expected to act the grown-up, grow a pair, man-up and do my duty to give my daughter away without a tear or a sob or a choke.

Good luck with that.

Given the right set of circumstances, I can well ‘em up with the best of ‘em. Heck, I cried when I heard Paul Potts sing “Nessun Dorma” on the English talent show "Britain's got Talent" back in 2007. (And I don’t think I’m alone - more than 98.4 million people have watched the YouTube video.)

So the not-so-small matter of my daughter’s nuptials is likely to put a lump of emotion right where my throat is supposed to be.

But I’ll soldier through. I’ll smile through it all. I’ll do my job as FOB. And I’ll find another time to shed a tear or two or three.

Past and present collide

My daughter Elizabeth’s coming wedding is a time machine.

It’s a collision of past and present with a peek into the future.

That was evident earlier this month at an engagement party in Connecticut that included the bridal party and the groomsmen.

There are eight in Elizabeth’s bridal party: One cousin, three college friends, and four high school friends.

It’s the four high school friends -- Jen, Cait, Stef, and Steph (all pictured here at Stef’s recent wedding) -- who are sending me on my time machine journeys.

Steph, Stef and Cait came to the engagement party and it was difficult to separate these young women from the little girls I knew in Beverly, Mass.

They’ve aged and grown up into engaging young women. Meanwhile, I’ve remained age neutral … or so I try to tell myself.

In a way, I refuse to accept the notion that all those intervening years for Elizabeth and her friends has meant added years on my time card.

So I’m stuck in this time warp: I’m a 30 or 40 year old man with a 28 year old daughter who’s getting married.

The time warp wasn’t helped, by the way, when my stepdaughter Kelsey gave birth to a daughter, Rylin, the day after Christmas.

Kelsey’s mom (my wife) Jane seems confused by it all too. I think she regards herself more as Rylin’s aunt, instead of Rylin’s grandmother.

I say that because she commonly calls me “Uncle Paul” when she’s cooing to Rylin. Not that I want to be known as “Grandpa Paul”, but you get my drift.

These girls/women who will aid and abet Elizabeth in her journey to get married are the little girls at Centerville Elementary, or Elizabeth’s teammates on the high school gymnastics team, or teammates on the high school lacrosse team.

The prom buddies have become half the bridemaids.

I see my daughter Elizabeth and my son David in a kaleidoscope of images -- all at once they are newborns or learning to drive, they are at piano lessons or graduating from college, they are playing on the backyard swingset or getting ready to get married.

Of course there’s nothing I can do to slow it all down. Sixty seconds is a minute, 60 minutes is an hour, 24 hours is a day.

My sideview mirror says objects may appear closer than they are.

My mirror on this time machine says people may appear younger than they are.

New role as father of the bride

I’ve spent the last few days trying to get my head around the fact that my 7-year-old daughter is getting married.

Actually, she’s 27.

But she’ll always be my little girl -- my Scoot, my Goose, my Pumpkin’.

It’s that way with children who are growing -- have grown -- and have flown the nest.

You revel in the adults they’ve become, yet you cling to the kids they were.

I’m not breaking any new ground here as father of a bride-to-be. There’s been a movie … and a remake of the movie … and a sequel to the movie.

But every father of the bride experience is unique, to a large extent, because of the emotion and personal memories we bring to the process.

There are mile markers along the road of how grown up they’ve become when we believe they shouldn’t be growing up at all:

-- Middle school? Wait, didn’t you just start first grade?

-- Driving? No, no, no. Eighth graders aren’t allowed to drive.

-- College graduation? When did you stop being a freshman in high school?

Elizabeth in my head is always many years younger than she actually is.

Part of that is my being selfish, my reluctance to accept my own aging.

If Elizabeth is getting that much older it means I’m getting that much older. Conversely, if I hold onto Elizabeth as being that much younger I hold onto my much younger self.

Elizabeth and John got engaged on Sunday. I couldn’t be happier for them.

While Elizabeth is prepared and organized, there’s still lots in the months ahead leading up to a late summer wedding.

That process will help my brain process the notion of daddy’s little girl getting married.

I’m not in denial. Indeed, I’m in full embrace of the notion.

My brain just needs to catch up with reality:

-- My Scoot owns a car.

-- My Goose is a doctor of physical therapy.

-- My Pumpkin’ soon will be a bride.