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SALT LAKE CITY — Realistically, unless I get a call in the next 32 minutes with a verbal invitation and an address, or a text, I won’t be at my daughter’s wedding. Neither will anyone on our side of the family.
My wife found out two hours ago that the previously rumored wedding, just yesterday denied, is on for 4 p.m. today.
Myelda is 20-ish and has a lovely child I affectionately call Buggy. Family members think I call him buggy because he is cute as a bug, or because his eyes are so large. No. I call him buggy because his real name sounds like an industrial bug killer.
I also call him Buggy deliberately because it isn’t his real name. Calling him by his real name would mean I happily acknowledge his patronage and that I am still miffed at the whole thing. Some men control what they can, I suppose.
And here is where my lovely genteel Gramma Hurren, who accepted everyone and was loved by all, turns over in her grave — I don't like Myelda's boyfriend.
I love my daughter, I love my grandson and I am thrilled with the chance I have to have them both in my life.
And here is where my lovely genteel Gramma Hurren, who accepted everyone and was loved by all, turns over in her grave — I don’t like Myelda’s boyfriend. Some call him the “baby daddy,” and in — well, 18 minutes now — some will be calling him the husband.
I recall that my father-in-law was not all that happy with me when I married my wife, and, being the second husband, there was balking all around. Some of it I simply had to live through, and some of it only dissipated when I proved that I was planning on staying around for a while.
Am I fair to put this guy through the same, if more compound ringer?
While my own past ain’t so pretty, it pales in comparison to this guy’s past. But this is not the point. Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether I like the guy or not. The bottom line is that based on recent and factual history, I do not feel that this guy is capable of taking care of Myelda and Buggy.
Fourteen minutes.
Since she announced that she was pregnant last year and, for all intents and purposes, moved in with this guy’s group of friends, I have been trying to prepare for today. My church leaders — to whom I look for guidance in situations like this where I feel completely inadequate — tell me that I need to relax and let my daughter make her own decisions and to be supportive of her.
There is much rhetoric centering around "being supportive of her, but not her necessarily her choices." I just haven't been able to do it. How do I separate my daughter from what she does?
There is much rhetoric centering around “being supportive of her, but not her necessarily her choices.” I just haven’t been able to do it. How do I separate my daughter from what she does?
After all, I love her for what she does. I love her when I see her being compassionate toward her sister, or when I look at a photo of her posing as captain woman on her way to school for the first time. I love her when I think of the silly dance she used to do down the stairs to when we listened to old CDs.
I love her to death. And I hate what she is doing or allowing others to do to herself and to her son.
Less than 8 minutes. No call. Should I just drive around Central Utah county looking for a wedding party of girls in white tube tops? Isn’t there someone I can call — or some kind of stop-a-bad-wedding alert button?
Sorry for the cynicism. Seven minutes.
This may be the issue that will define who I am as a person. When the move is made in Myelda’s life, am I going to be portrayed as Kevin Bacon’s dad in “Footloose” by some staunch guy with several chins? I will be the Mormon priesthood equivalent of "The Church Lady."
I always thought I would be the liberal arts trained, free-spirited bohemian — part of the new Mormon regimes’ front line of sensitive compassionate fathers. I was the one in the family voted most likely to channel Gramma Hurren's kindness and good will toward all. There is the rub.
Option one: In my church, fathers are told that they — we — have responsibility to lead, guide and keep our family safe. With this in mind, am I the one with the guts to call a spade a spade and, as the patriarch of my family, lead and guide with a firm hand, keeping Myelda and her son safe?
Or, is what I call “keeping my family safe” really just make me an unforgiving stereotypical fool that doesn’t budge because of his interpretation of morals and standards?
In just writing that, I know that option is not an option.
Still, I don’t trust this guy in my house, let alone … and here I am back at the beginning.
After so many years of wasting everyone’s time as a dad, I suppose it was inevitable that I wouldn’t have much positive influence on Myelda. There was just too much time not being there. There is a point at which efforts are too little, too late.
Its 4 o’clock. My phone is sitting on the table next to me, not ringing. I texted my congratulations and told her I loved her. She texted back that she loves me, too.
What do I do now? I may just have to make up option two as I go along.
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Main image: My daughter, Myelda, posing on her first day of school as "Captain Woman!" (Photo: Marie Cheney, DCheneyStudio)
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Davison writes about things he is familiar with: things like raising children, taking children to therapy, bailing children out of trouble, and trying not to beat up parents of other children when they yell at his children for not getting the basketball to their children. Read more from Davison at davisoncheneymegadad.blogspot.com.*
