Passage

My youngest daughter turned 18 this month. She most probably will stay home for a few more years to go to school so we are not quite empty-nesters yet. But the next click of the stopwatch of our lives has been set.

It has been some 28 years now since the term 'daughter' has been the focal point of my life, and I can't help feeling a bit nostalgic, a bit of trepidation, a bit of relief....a conglomeration of feelings difficult to put in writing.

Marriage and daughters came in the same breath. I was a single, lonely bachelor eking out a strange random life when I met my wife and her infant daughter. Loving the daughter, the instincts of being a father, of her need for a father, all came easy. Not so easy came being a husband. Learning sacrifice, learning honesty, learning tenderness, learning how to make a living, and transitioning to an adult existence....it was difficult and painful at times. My wife suffered from my growing pains, our marriage constantly churning and shifting and peculating as I learned every mistake a husband could make (I hope I learned them all!!!!).

Soon a second daughter came along, again...the fatherhood part the easy part of things. Watching the girls grow, taking them to the park, to soccer and swimming, birthday parties. Reading and watching movies. Teaching them, letting them drive my truck at the dump, letting them shoot rifles and fish and going on vacation. Daughters were my life and my life was my daughters. And they were so easy to love, and so sweet, and the work of being a Father was oh so hard and oh so rewarding.

10 years later, my youngest arrived. Sweet and needing love, hard work, hugs and more hugs and a life time of daughter hugs, tears, owwies, Dr. Visits, school plays, recitals, talks, church activities, report cards, puppies, hamsters, boys at the door. With the 10 year gap it seemed like Fatherhood would last forever, and in a way it did...but forever has an ending, and the ending is not too far away now.

This part of me, Fatherhood, I'd like to think I wore it well, or the best I could. And I liked it, and I will miss it. And now there are Grandchildren, but the role is not the same, the role has changed, and the role is not so clear to me now.

The stopwatch has clicked and I start a new race, and I don't know what is next, but I gingerly move on.

Life, this great adventure.

Cheers, nca