On Being Spencer Tracy

My one and only little girl got married today.

I've seen the original version of "Father of the Bride" several times, and I couldn't help but feel myself placed in the role which Spencer Tracy played with such skill and touching realism. In fact, as much as I have loved the movie over the years, I confess that I had no idea how real his portrayal was until going through it myself today.

The exact lines escape me, but I am reminded, in particular, of the moment when Tracy sees his daughter (portrayed by young Elizabeth Taylor) in her wedding gown for the first time, just moments before her wedding. He is taken aback, and moved to a completely different state of mind. I experienced just that today; and to put it in my own words, "My Lord, my little girl is a young woman!"

Oh, sure, as a father, you think that you realize this about your daughter for years--as she graduates from high school and then college, gets a job for which she has a particular gift, and any number of other rites of passage. But for most of us, it never really hits home until your little girl takes a man with whom to spend her life. No, not the engagement...not the preparations...it is not until that moment comes when she is about to vow herself to a man--for better or worse, for richer or poorer, until death--that a father realizes that she is really grown up.

My dear daughter Ann was a miracle child in her own way: Due to my wife Mary's health, we were unable to have more than one child. There was a time in my life when I mourned this inability--until God gave me the grace to realize how amazing it was that we had the one that we did. As an only child, Ann was perhaps a bit spoiled: But by the grace of God, she has grown into a generous, thoughtful, caring, Catholic Christian woman.

After Ann had spent a couple of years in college, a four-hour drive away from us, she announced that she would no longer be spending the entire summer at home, but would come home for visits.

"Visits"--that word made a distinction very clear: Our home was no longer what she considered her home. At that point, I realized that the major portion of our jobs as parents was complete.

But today was different: Today, my eyes were opened to the fact that we're really done with our assignment, and it's time to let go of someone you love; it's time to let that love mature into another form. Reading bedtime stories ended a long time ago, and so did helping with homework. There is no more setting of rules or teaching what is proper. The time has come to let her take what she has learned, put it into parentally unsupervised practice in real life, hope that we got a few things right in the process, and pray for God to fill in the rest.

Adam--the young man who took Ann for his bride today--has been a wonderful friend, and I look forward to the years to come with him as my son-in-law.

When it was all done today, and we left the reception, I was reminded of the desoloation which Spencer Tracy's character felt until his daughter called him from the train station to tell him how much she loved him. I took comfort in the fact that our "kids" now live only a half-hour drive from us, and that we'll see them soon, and probably more frequently than we have in the past couple of years.

Ann and Adam will do just fine. Mary will be ok. And I'll be ok; but just be gentle with me, as I get used to the fact that a new chapter in my life has begun too.