To our daughter as she marries

Our eldest daughter marries the 16th. Here is a version of a note I sent to her. As I said, I drew inspiration for this note from the IU writer, Scott Russell Sanders. Actually they come from pieces in The Force of Spirit and another collection, Hunting for Hope, as they merged in my mind. I have said before that being a parent means existing in a time tunnel, when moments from the distant past merge not the present, with the future only an occasional daydream.The same girl who at four thought herself the wedding co-ordinator in Lagrange rehearsals, now has planned and acts on a wedding of her own. As I am sure you mother has mentioned, she was in labor a long time with you. With a drug, pitocin, to induce labor, you came into the world in the post-midnight morning after a presidential debate. It was a chilly October day, and I insisted that we take a picture of you from outside the car in your car seat, so you wouldn’t get chilled at something like 12 hours old. On the rare times you slept, i would sneak a peek at you to make sure you were breathing in your sudden quiet, barely breathing myself to catch sight of your chest moving.. One woman in the married student housing complex at Princeton said that she had never seen a father look so proud. She meant it sourly, but I took it as a profound empirical truth. That has never changed, at least on the inside. I look at you and continue to marvel. Being a parent is to fight the desire to enclose a child in an external womb and to let go, bit by bit. I cried when I took you to the babysitter for the first time. I cried when I took you to Montessori pre-school and your small legs could barely make each tall step on the way inside. Our legs are too small to take the steps we climb as adults, but we climb them, nevertheless. I knew you were smart right away, saying baby at around nine months in the mall and noticing the open-mouthed stares of the mothers in the store. You can see a tape when you were not yet four of saying your ABCs while bouncing on the bed. Sanders writes:’No star outshines my daughter.” Justice Jackson once wrote “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation...” If there is any fixed star in my family constellation, you are there, our firstborn. I was so taken by how you got so wrapped up in your reading, how the world seem to fall away from you within the orbit of the world you were now inhabiting. At times, I would swear that you shared some literary interests with your mother, but at times, I could catch a glimpse of your mental processes that reminded me of my own. I’ve told you how I felt on a tightrope with you, as your mind and language was so far advanced, but your heart was at the stage of your age. Part of me wants to give some advice, and part of me fears to. After all, I have given counsel on marriages and try to observe good ones, even as I felt a spectator to the dissolution of my own. I have long been fascinated by the work of John Gottman. Placed in a positive frame, he would say to seek to treat Aren with respect. I sense the presence of god in a happy home, and that is my prayer for you. In a way, a marriage has a third party within its bounds already, the relationship itself. As the relationship is nurtured and prized, so shall you both be as well. We rarely come to grips with the depths of our own being, let alone that of another, so keep your eyes open for the surprises and the insights that will come your way over the years. Maybe you were able to witness the transit of Venus recently. I get to escort a different Venus to be presented to an impatient public at the church soon. that too is an event of cosmic importance. I was privileged to be able to witness your birth, cut the umbilical cord, and wash and weigh you at birth. Now I have the chance to witness the birth of a new family. that will be another holy moment in my l