The text from my daughter’s boyfriend was oblique, yet clear.
“I heard you’re coming to New York, maybe we could grab a
drink,” he wrote.
When your kids are in their late 20s and a boyfriend starts
showing up to “family” events, you can feel the sands shifting. When he begins
inching his way from the photo’s edges to your daughter’s arm on center stage,
it raises questions:
“Do you like him?” my daughter asks.
“Is he what you expected?” my parents ask.
“Is this the one?” our friends ask.
My answers are all muted because I don’t know if he’s the
one, or what I expected. But when I don’t answer with unbridled enthusiasm,
they think I am disappointed.
“He makes you happy,” I tell my daughter.
“So you don’t like him,” she replies.
The truth is I never imagined who my daughter might marry.
Why would I?
It’s kind of icky from a dad’s perspective.
Son-in-laws have a tough time in life, in literature and in
lore.
From the Bronte sisters to the Fockers, son-in-laws only win
by not losing.
For example, every shot in golf has a name. There’s an
elephant’s ass for a shot that’s high and shitty. A James Joyce is a green
that’s impossible to read. But then there’s the son-in-law. It’s a shot that
you’re not so sure about at first, but by the end, it turns out better than you
expected.
Our first child’s engagement is the opening line in a new
chapter for the family.
The first chapter was our marriage. Then there was the
season of having children, schooling, Bar Mitzvah season, graduation season, kids
in college season, all of the latter ones documented on social media.
Like all circles of life, they return to the beginning with
a new wedding season.
But this marrying-off-the kids stage for me is more akin to
sending the first off to college, than it is to wedding season. Like
empty nesting, this is an event after which nothing will be the same. A party
of five is now as dated as a flip phone.
So the blessed event happens, she is surprised, the ring
goes on the finger, pictures are snapped, and snapped and snapped, and the race
to find a date and venue begins. But for a moment we stand around a
table with 3 sets of grandparents, 2 sets of parents and assorted relatives
with more than 300 years of marriage experience and knowledge.
What could we tell them?
It’s like those Netflix show recommendations all our friends make. Some seasons are better than others, but stick with it,
because the payoff is totally worth it.
