Just walking?

Dearest blog reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. It leaves my hand a couple of days after Grace and Chris'  wedding. Close your eyes and imagine the entire family white knuckled, firmly straddling  plan A; a wedding in the meadow under a 150 year old oak tree, and plan B; a wedding in the church reception hall. The meadow offered the perceived enchantment and reward for all of the work surrounding clearing, toting, and burning sixty thorn trees. The church offered dry chairs and lack of lightening.  It is a high stakes game of chicken. Who would blink first; Mother Nature or the Sharritts?

The title of last week's blog; "The road to a wedding" was used a little too quickly. I am sure that it was Freudian slippage. A walk down the road has been my personal theme of this wedding for a long time. My procrastination in writing about the wedding has been epic. In a vain effort to keep from becoming the subject of a country ballad, I had not strayed towards my thoughts and feelings about the impending nuptials.  As hard as I tried not to be that dad, I would find myself drifting off towards the land of "I Loved Her First" and "Butterfly Kisses".  Arghhh!

During the past six months as I have imagined walking down the aisle with Grace, my inner movie has always flashed to walking Grace to Maple Ridge Elementary a mile north of our house. This walk in the wedding meadow started a long time ago and seems just like yesterday. Just yesterday, Grace came home from school telling a story that her efforts to exercise were being thwarted by school administration policy barring students from walking onto school property. How unAmerican is that? Those fascists. If a nine year old has the where-with-all to get out of bed a half hour early, to keep her wits about her, to take reasonable safety precautions (look both ways, wear reflective clothing or lights, walk facing oncoming traffic) what right does the government have to stop her?

Thankfully, this governmental entity had no jurisdiction over my ambulatory use of the public highways and byways. By extension, I was able to transfer these expanded rights to Grace while in my company. So for four years, we walked most mornings to school. Side by side, we would walk down the big hill, cross the bridge spanning the mighty Fall Creek, and trudge up the valley's bookend hill. Each fall, we would have to train a new group of drivers, who not understanding sturdy individualism, would stop and offer us a ride up to school. Thankfully, we really did like to walk, and had taken to heart warnings about accepting  rides with strangers.

These walks were filled with talk; talk about the day, talk about books, talk about the farm. The talk that stood out the most was about the viability of the farm. At age 10, Grace knew that we would not be able to survive financially. The work was too difficult and the rewards too small. So small in fact, in the wide universe of potential careers, the one that she had eliminated was farming.

I have often contended allowing the independence of your children involves a series of thresholds that they pass through and you cannot follow. You stand at the door and watch them pass on through. By the very nature of doors and walls, the field of vision into their lives is limited. They can stand to either side and keep parts hidden, or rather limit the sharing. It is healthy. It is growing up, becoming their own people. Also, limits are hard. Like a two year old I have had my tear streaked, snotty nose plastered against that door, wanting to see. Like a loving father, I have held back, and tried to hold my tongue thankful for the wide view of the lives Grace and Chris and our son Ben have walked towards.

This was true with the college threshold. It seems even more true at the marriage threshold. It was brought vividly to me in a painting Bev commissioned that was inspired from a Ghana picture of Grace and three Ghanaian children walking through a village. The artist captured Grace and the children and the village, added Chris and the big oak tree. It is breath taking.

After catching my breath, I was struck that they are walking away. Like a relay race, the baton is passing and they will continue the journey to places unattainable by Bev and I. Through God's grace, the passing of the baton will be long and sweet and it will be a long long walk.

Take care.

Roger