My firstborn got married this past weekend.
Matt is twenty-five now. He’s the same age I was when I married his mother a few months before he was born.
Stacy is a sweetheart, with a darling little four-year-old daughter. I became a father-in-law and a grandfather in the same day. They’ve had their ups and downs, but they’re committed to each other. I’m still wrapping my head around the grandpa thing, but Sammie’s a charmer.
His mother and I were married just shy of three years, and in the end, lived apart longer than we lived together. It was thirteen miles from my house to where they lived after the divorce. Just a twenty minute drive. I didn’t make it nearly often enough. There was always some excuse, mostly laziness, on my part. Sometimes guilt forced me to make the drive, because my parents adored their grandson.
Then I met someone new, married, and moved a hundred miles away, and saw him even less often. Twenty minutes became 90-plus one way.
Then his mom met someone new, married, and moved a little farther away. The drive became longer, and I made it even less often. I justified it by saying that ten hours of driving out of a 48-hour weekend wasn’t quality time.
I was wrong.
As he grew older, his mother occasionally sent me copies of report cards, or school pictures. She didn’t update me much on school events, thinking correctly that I’d probably not want to drive five hours round trip for an hour-long school event.
I was wrong.
I should have taken the time. I should have driven those five hours, or those ten.
I should have called. I should have asked his mom to send me more information.
That time is gone, never to be recovered. There’s no way to make up for it.
We went through a long phase of not talking. I wasn’t a great long-distance father. He was rightfully angry at me for not being available.
But a few years ago, we started talking more. It was partially because he was having problems with his mom and his new step-dad. But we were talking. Because he took the initiative. One night I told him that no matter when he called me, I’d answer. If he needed me, I’d be available to him.
He’s called me on that, more than once.
Now I always answer.
We go through phases these days, where he calls me more, or I call him more. We text fairly often now. We’re talking, though. I’m a bigger part of his life than I was years ago.
I wasn’t sure how this weekend would go. We drove from NE Oklahoma to Pittsburgh in one barely-endurable eighteen-hour overnight drive, arriving mid-morning on the day of the wedding. It wasn’t bad with four drivers to share the chores.
I saw his mother for the first time in seven years. The last time we met, he was moving out over some parenting choices he felt were insufferable. I wasn’t terribly happy with them either. It was not a pleasant scene. Not unsurprisingly, we were all adults for the day, focusing on the future rather than the past.
My parents are long gone, 17 and 21 years ago. His maternal grandfather, who did an amazing job of standing in for a very immature son-in-law, just passed away three months ago. That made the wedding that much more poignant. I wish they all could have seen this.
I have a new daughter-in-law, and a new granddaughter. I’m thrilled that my family grew this way, and more importantly, that I was able to be a part of it.
It means the world to me that my son is mature enough to make the efforts he has over the years to include me in his life now. I will never take that for granted.
I’ll leave you with this observation, parents. Never stop being a parent. No matter how you feel about your former spouse, never stop being a parent. You will never be able to make up for it. You can be forgiven, but you’ll never get that time back.
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