My oldest granddaughter is engaged to be married.
I did not grow up in a home with girls. In fact, my father was the oldest of eight children, six of them boys. My mom and dad had two kids, both boys. When I got married, my wife and I had three sons. No girls anywhere.
So, one can understand my surprise that, when my eldest son and his wife had their first child, it was a girl. She was named Victoria Sabrina — “Tori” for short.
My wife and I were in the hospital waiting room when she was born 20 and a half years ago. Soon, my son brought her out and placed her in my arms. I didn’t know what to do with her. Boys, I understood. Girls, to a very great extent, were and are a mystery. I was afraid I’d break her or hold her too tightly. After Tori, my sons had three boys in a row and I thought things had returned to normal. But the next seven grandchildren were all girls.
Barring some unforeseen event, Tori will be the first of the eleven to be married. Soon after she was born, I dedicated her to the Lord in church. Later I baptized her and saw her confirmed in the Church.
When she turned 12, she looked 15, so I started asking her if she had any “boyfriends I needed to kill.” I know that her father is her primary protector, but I decided to ride shotgun on that stagecoach. The more protection, the better, I figured. And now someone has come along and stolen her heart. And he is a fine young man, one I will be proud to call family.
When Tori was 16, she told me, as she had in the past, “I want you to marry me when the time comes. I want my daddy to walk me down the aisle and I want you to marry me.”
Touched, I said, “Tori, I’d be honored. If I can, I will.”
She cocked her head and said, “What do you mean, ‘if you can?’ Why couldn’t you?”
“Well, I’m 60 years old,” I said. “I might not be around forever.”
“Oh, pooh,” she retorted. “That’s not old.”
“Sweetheart, my father died at age 69.”
A look came over her face and tears spilled down her cheeks. “Well, that can’t happen,” she sobbed. “You have to be here!”
I held her close, terribly regretting that I ever opened my big mouth, and said, “I do plan to be here. I do.”
And now, the distant future is not so far away. The baby I held in my arms is going to be married. And, I presume, she will be a mother, too, someday. It thrills me. It delights me. It frightens me, too.
I want to protect her and her intended from the pressures and pains of adulthood. I want them to have an easier time of it that did we. But that’s not a role I can play. They will meet life on their own terms and, with God’s help, they will prevail.
It also frightens me because, now, I want to see them all get married — all 11 of them. I want to stay reasonably healthy, be in my right mind, and I want to live longer than my father and my mother. I want to be at their weddings, see them have great-grandchildren, and watch them grow. The youngest will be 20 in 14 years. I will be 78 years old. I plan to be there, too.
Someone who had just had their first child once told me, “I don’t think I want any more children. I love this one so much.”
I said to her, “Love is not like an apple pie where, if you have one child, they get the whole pie and, if another comes along, the pie is cut in half. Each child gets a whole new pie.”
I felt that way with my sons. There wasn’t a pie cut into thirds. There were three pies, as full of love and pride as could be. It’s the same with the grandkids — 11 grandkids, 11 pies. There are limits to many things. But love is not one of them.
And so, I want to see them all experience and live their dreams. Hopefully, that’s not too much to ask of God. I know there are no guarantees but if He will let me, I plan to be there.
[David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Sharpsburg, GA (www.ctkcec.org). He is the bishop of the Mid-South Diocese which consists of Georgia and Tennessee (www.midsouthdiocese.org) and the Associate Endorser for the Department of the Armed Forces, U. S. Military Chaplains, ICCEC. He may contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.]
