The Almost not Father of the Bride Speech

A little over a year ago, my daughter got engaged and she was married this past July.  I knew right away what I wanted to say in my "speech" at her wedding right after my new son-in-law asked me for permission to propose to her.  In fact, I put together the outline for it that very same night!  I had to wait 3 long weeks until he finally proposed and she accepted to tell my daughter my exciting news about the speech.  The night they came over to show us her ring and share the news, I excitedly told her "I already know what I'm going to say in my speech."  To which she replied, "Dad, you aren't going to be giving a speech at my wedding."  I was a bit incredulous and saddened, but knowing my daughter I fgured she already had a plan and me giving a speech at her wedding wasn't part of it.

Throughout the next year I listened to endless planning sessions and discussions about "the wedding".  I brought up my speech a few times in that year, but each time I was met with the same response, "Sorry Dad, you're not giving a speech."  I finally resigned myself to the fact that I was just going to be an "extra" in this whole thing.

About a week before the wedding, as the final plans were being made for the rehearsal and dinner and wedding day, my daughter brought up the fact that I had to give the "welcome" at the banquet (after the wedding but before the meal).  She just said, "You'll do the welcome at Dellwood and then hand the mic off to the pastor for the prayer."  I shrugged it off as trivial and said "sure, I can do that".

Then the day before the wedding, amidst the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the rehearsal and dinner, my daughter caught me alone and said, "Dad, will you take me to coffee tomorrow morning?".  I said, "Sure, what time?", and she said "How about 7?"  I said "It's a date!"

I got up early the next morning and sat deep in my thoughts about all that was happening.  She came down around 6:45 and we headed to coffee.  We started with small talk about different parts of the wedding and how the day was going to go, about different people we were going to see, and how we hoped it stayed a nice day.  I told her I was very proud of her and happy for her, and we talked about her goals and plans for life.  As we were getting ready to leave, she asked me, "So, do you have your father of the bride speech ready?"  I just stared at her and said, "What?!?  You said I wasn't giving a speech!"  She smiled coyly and said, "Oh, I thought I told you.  I found out it's customary for the father of the bride to give a speech during the welcome."  I said, "No, that must have slipped in the details.  If you want me to give one, I will, but I don't have one prepared."  She said, "Well, yeah, I would like you to give one - but just make it short, OK?"  I said, "OK" and we came home with about 4 hours to get ready for the rest of the big day.  She went on to get her hair, nails, and whatever else that brides get done, and I sat down to write a speech!

Well, I'll be honest and say that I did quite a bit of internet research on FOB speech protocol, and had written my second complete draft within the first hour of getting home.  I then went to practice it in front of the mirror in the bathroom, and turned into a puddle of tears the first several times I tried to get through it.  I finally felt like I had a handle on it and tried a practice run in front of my son - with the same result as the first few times in front of the mirror.  I thought "I'm never going to be able to get through this."  But by the third time with my son, I thought I had a handle on it and was ready.  I practiced it two more times in the bathroom at church before the wedding and felt like I was good to go - that I could even give it without reading it from the paper.  I tucked the pages into my suit coat and readied myself for the big walk and the ceremony.

When I got to the banquet hall, I stalked down the DJ to understand the logistics and process.  He calmly told me when I was supposed to get up, where I was supposed to stand, how I would get the mic, and how I would hand it off to the pastor when I was done.  I felt as ready as I would ever be.  When the time came, I got up, and I actually made it through the speech without crying like a baby - although I did have several moments where I was so choked up I couldn't get the next sentence out.  I think the pauses added drama to the speech :).  Anyway, without further ado, here's the speech I ended up giving:

"Hi Everyone,
For those of you I haven't met yet, my name is Joel ... and I am the "Father of the Bride".

First, let me say "Welcome!" to you all and thank you all for sharing in this happy day for Allysa and David.

And Second, to Kile & Jenny, Daniel, Becca & Seth, Ritchie, Jessie, and Lucy, and of course David, I'd like to officially welcome you to the Glass family!  We look forward to sharing many more happy times with you all.

Allysa and David - you two have always looked good together, but today you make an especially handsome couple.  Allysa, I think you are beautiful all the time, but today, you look absolutely radiant!  I could not be prouder of the person you are and I could not be happier for you than I am today.

Right now, I just want to share a couple of snapshot moments that I've had with Allysa.  She was really a "Daddy's girl" growing up so I have a lot of them, but there were two bright memories that flashed immediately to my mind that fateful day last June when David joined me on the porch as I was grilling, and, with his eyes fixed firmly down at his shuffling feet, asked for my permission to propose to Allysa.

The first snapshot was from back when Allysa was about 5 years old and still an only child.  It was a late spring day and she and I were outside playing in the warm weather - me shooting hoops and she riding the new bike that her Grandma Dorothy had given her for Christmas.  I went inside to get a drink and just as I got to the sink I heard this blood curdling scream from outside.  I ran to see what happened and when I opened the door, there stood Allysa, blood dripping down her face and neck from a huge gash in her upper lip (she had cut it on the horn of her bike when she bumped the curb).  My first thought on seeing her was, "Oh no, not her beautiful FACE!"  But what was really seared into my memory was the look she had on her face; especially her eyes.  They were wide open and locked on mine as if to say, "Dad?  Help Me!"  Well, I scooped her up in my arms, brought her in to wash off the blood, and then we rushed her to the emergency room where she got stitched up.  All the way to the hospital I kept reassuring her, saying, "Everything's going to be OK Allysa, everything is going to be OK."

By the way, you can still see her scar when it gets cold outside :)

Now flash forward with me to the summer after Allysa and David's senior year in high school.  They had already been dating for several years then and it was pretty clear to me that David was an important man in Allysa's life.  They spent that summer hanging out together and with friends as much as possible, but Allysa was going to school in Eau Claire in the fall, and David was going to UMD.  In addition, David was going to kick for the UMD football team, which meant that he had to leave a few weeks earlier than Allysa for training camp.  It was early on a Saturday morning in August when David packed up and headed for Duluth.  I was up when Allysa went over the the Nadeau's to say "Good bye" to him, and I was sitting at our computer in the kitchen when she came home.  She walked in to the kitchen and I turned to look at her and there it was - that same look on her face and in her eyes that she had all those years earlier - "Dad?  Help me!"  I grabbed her and hugged her as she sobbed and sobbed in my arms, and I just kept saying to her, "Everything's going to be OK Allysa, everything is going to be OK."

And that brings me back to that day last June on the porch with David.  There was quite the awkward pause before I answered him (he must have been sweating bullets), but it was because those memories were flashing through my mind.  And my NEXT thought was that the NEXT time Allysa needed help like that, she was going to turn to you, David.  I had to digest that and check myself to be 100% sure that I could trust you with that.  So I thought back through your relationship and how you have respected Allysa and treated her so well all these years, and I knew, I KNEW that I could not have asked for a better man and partner for Allysa.  So I said, "Of course, David" and gave him my blessing.

And here we are.  That was over a year ago and tons of planning and decision making has happened since then.  And, you MADE IT!  It was a beautiful ceremony and I am really looking forward to this reception.  I invite everyone here, young and old, to have fun and get out on the dance floor tonight and "Dance like no one is watching."

I'll conclude with a toast:

A toast to my daughter Allysa.  She was and is a gift from God and I am grateful and honored to be her Dad.  May God continue to bless her and David and grant them health, happiness, and most of all Love all the days of their lives.

Cheers!"

Seasons and Meaning

The other day I had a conversation with a gentleman, and the impact of that conversation seems to grow on me as each day passes.  At first blush it seemed totally benign, but as I thought more and more about the things he said, I began to see more and more significance and application in my own life.  I will never claim to know the "meaning of life", but this gentleman may have given me a clue.

I had taken the day off from work to take my truck in for repairs.  My plan was to sit at the dealership and wait, so I had brought my laptop and reading materials along.  I have been doing a lot of reading on things like personal leadership and God's intention for our lives for reasons I'll go into in another post.  Suffice it to say that I have been doing a lot of soul searching for the past year plus trying to figure out how I want to live the rest of my life - a changing of the seasons if you will.

It didn't take as long as I expected for my truck to be ready, so I was faced with  half the day left and nothing really to do.  I decided to go to the gym and work out.  I was excited because normally I am rushed to try to get my workout in as quickly as possible and on this day I could take my time.

In the locker room, I found myself getting dressed in the same aisle as a gentleman that I would guess was in his low to mid 80s.  He started a conversation with me, and I could just tell he wanted to talk, so I decided to take my time and chat with him.  We talked about what we were planning to do in our workouts (he was going to swim, I was going to lift), and he asked if I had to go back to work later.  I told him no, that I had taken the day off and he asked "You can do that?".  I smiled and told him about my truck and he told me about some of his experiences with car repairs. 

What he said next kind of stunned me - I asked him what he liked to do for fun, and he paused and then said "Well, I come here to the gym occasionally, but since my wife passed, I don't go out as much.  She just passed in June."  I could actually feel my heart breaking for this man.  I told him I was sorry for his loss, but that kind of ended the conversation.  I told him I needed to get going and he said he did too, and I told him to "have a good workout".

After my workout as I was drying off from the shower, he showed up again, drying himself off too.  We started a new conversation about how good it felt to work out, and he told me another story about car troubles from when he and his wife had driven to Florida.  We both lamented how it was too bad that car engines are so complicated today that it's almost impossible to repair anything yourself any more.  (Back in the old days you could do that you know.)  We shaved side by side at the sinks in the locker room and got dressed together, talking the whole time.  As we both packed up and took one last look in the mirror, I said to him, "Well, I'm taking off, you have a good rest of the day."  He looked at me and smiled and said, "Thank you, you too."  As I turned he said "Joel?", and I turned back to look at him and he said "Don't forget to have fun."

Hello World

I can't believe it's 2012 and I am composing my FIRST blog entry!  I have been involved with and sitting in the front row of the tech explosion since I was a boy and have been excitedly watching and participating in nearly all of the developments - yet never got around to blogging.  Maybe I didn't think I had anything worthwhile to write about, or maybe I was afraid that no one would care.

Well, popular opinion be damned!  Writing to me is therapeutic and so why not put some of it out there to take the arrows?  I have no idea what general themes I'll post about (or if I'll continue to post at all) - my passions and interests are varied and, to be honest, I'm a little scatter brained AND compulsive, which at times has proved to be a dangerous combination in my life.

In this my first ever blog, I'm going to talk about what I think is both the exciting and potentially dangerous role of technology in our lives.  My first view of a microprocessor was an Atari game console that my neighbor got for Christmas in the late '70's.  It came with "Pong" and "Breakout".  I was hooked and have been ever since!  Little did I know at that time that working with computers would become my livelihood down the road.

Since "Pong", technology has crept into our lives at an ever increasing rate.  When I first visited Disney's Epcot Center in 1980, the bold, futuristic technology on display was a kiosk with a TOUCH SCREEN mouse in a maze.  It only took about 30 years for that to become affordable and consumable.  With our smart phones and other mobile devices, we now carry on our persons much more computing power than would fit into a large room only 30 years ago.

When I was growing up, we had exactly one TV and one telephone in our house.  At last count in my home today, we have five TVs and four cell phones (for four people), not to mention four computers, three Ipods, and two gaming consoles.  That makes for a total of 12 internet connected devices in my home!

Obviously I think all of this is good or I would not have agreed to purchase these items.  Through the internet connections, we have at our fingertips more answers to questions today that 10 years ago would have required us to own an up-to-date full volume encyclopedia library.  There's really no excuse for us not to know how to do anything anymore.

We also have access to a wider range of thoughts than ever before.  Before the internet, we had to get all of our "information" from rigid sources like the official newspaper or network news.  Now we can go and find news when we want and from wherever WE choose.  We can see the contrary view to what we are told is "popular opinion" and find out that we're not alone if we disagree.  With social media like Facebook, we can also keep tabs on all of our "friends", even those that we'll probably never see in person again.  All of this is good.

So what do I think is potentially dangerous with all of this technology and where it is going? 

Well for one thing, and I may be just paranoid about this, but I have concerns about our privacy and our ability to live lives of liberty.  Everything we do online is tracked and recorded for eternity.  Companies like Google (who owns this blog site) track, use, and sell data about your online activity all the time.  As more and more of this "Big Data" is collected, how will it be used?  What if it gets into the wrong hands?  What if we as a nation lose our minds and elect people who want to crack down on "thought" ala "Fehrenheit 451"?  Think I'm crazy - just look at the "political correctness" and "hate crime" movements.  Both are directed at trying to get people to think in a conforming way.

Another concern I have actually stems from a conversation I had with a psychotherapist.  I told him that my theory on why we seemed to need so many people like him in our society today was because we had too much time on our hands to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves.  100 years ago, people were too busy just working to survive and didn't have the luxury of liesure time.  He gave me some credit for the thought, but countered with his own theory that he thought it was because we've lost all sense of "community".  We live in apartments or neighborhoods or towns and we don't even know the names of the people who live next door, let alone anything about their lives.  I bring this up because I see much of the "Social" movement in technology as an attempt to fill this void, but I don't think it hits the mark.  God made us as relational beings, and while posting on someone's wall may be seen as relating, I think God intended us to related on a skin on bone level.  What happens to a society when we lose almost all personal touch and connection with others?

Even with the concerns, I'm still excited about the future possiblities for technology in our lives and I am excited to stick around and watch it unfold.