My wife and I are at the “empty nest” stage of life. This week, we're visiting my daughter and her fiancé, in Denver. They're to be married, in a little more than a month. Our son is coming down from Laramie to visit for the 3rd and 4th.
It is interesting, reflecting on the stages of life, what I call “the great conveyor.” People climb on the conveyor at birth, and pass through many stages: infant, toddler, little kid, big kid, young adult. The conveyor metaphor captures well the sense that we are carried forward, always forward, at a rate we can neither slow down nor speed up. What it fails to capture though, is the sense of discrete stages. Oh, you don't always notice the transitions, but they're there. My daughter is now at the stage of commitment. It's good to see that she chose (and was chosen) well.
And it is wonderful to see the bonds of commitment grow. Their individual life plans are blending into a common plan. They have their first dog, a Siberian husky puppy. There is both seriousness and joy that illuminates their lives right now. He's in professional school, she's working, and considering going back to professional school too. They'll take on student loans, but they're investing in themselves. They're good risks.
1 comment:
Good to hear. I hope you still feel that way in 20 years, and that they do as well. The risk is about 50-50 now, but the odds are in your favor if you have religious commitment as part of a mainstream Protestant church. It improves the ratio at least, because now it's not just about how good the sex is, which is what the crummy secularists judge a marriage by, or any relationship by, but also it's more about the commitment to the harder things: communication, fairness, raising children, loving God, saying your prayers, sticking with the other person even when it isn't any fun, while knowing the fun will come back, intermittently, and it's more part of an epic journey, as opposed to a lyric poem.
Good luck to them! I wish them all the best!
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