A Romantic Family Interlude

How to organize the telling of this defeats me.

Where to start?

Where to start?

First, I suppose I should say that my oldest daughter drives an SUV. A huge one.

Three weeks ago she went to a tree sale and picked up a small redbud tree for me to plant in our front yard. She planned to deliver it to our house the same day but something came up, so she didn’t.

Now, my middle daughter (I have three sons and three daughters, all grown) recently traveled to California for a business conference and just returned a few days ago.

Older daughter had again said that she’d bring my tree over two weekends ago but something came up, and she didn’t.

Middle daughter called a family conference at a Chinese restaurant yesterday. She’d brought presents for each of us from her trip and she wanted to show us slides of the redwood trees, etc.

Oldest daughter (are you following this) had again said that she’d deliver my redbud tree last Wednesday but something came up. And she didn’t.

Now, my Middle daughter’s boyfriend is Mark, a transplanted yankee but a nice guy nonetheless. He, poor fellow, grew up with only one brother (I think) so he is not accustomed to the dynamics of a large rowdy family group.

OK. When eight of us gathered in the parking lot of the Chinese restaurant, Mark and Eve (middle daughter) announced their engagement! She showed off the lovely ring he gave her. They plan to marry within a year. They intend for the wedding to be held aboard a cruise ship with the Captain presiding.

How romantic.

We hugged and kissed and shook hands and patted Mark on the back and teased the happy couple. Maggie, our newly acquired granddaughter, presented them with intricate red paper hearts she had cut out (she studies some form of oriental paper cutting similar to origami).

Then we all went inside to eat and celebrate.

At the table they asked me to say a blessing and I gave thanks for the happy couple’s joy and love. I couldn’t remember well enough to quote it exactly, but I tried to say an old prayer called A Blessing On Families:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who settest the solitary in families; We commend to thy continual care the homes in which thy people dwell. Put far from them, we beseech thee, every root of bitterness, the desire of vain-glory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit together in constant affection those who, in holy wedlock, have been made one flesh; turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers; and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we be evermore kindly affectioned with brotherly love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Chow down time. Like locus in a grain field, we consumed sweet & sour chicken, egg rolls, and sushi (them — Not me!).

Table talk centered around the normal soap-opera stuff of Oldest daughter, and the recent troubles of youngest daughter, and the cruise ship, and the honeymoon in the Caribbean. And wedding arrangements and origami and internet metatags and fertility doctors and yard work and …

And I mentioned my redbud tree.

Whereupon, oldest daughter slapped her forehead and said she had forgotten about it being in the back of her SUV.

No one else seemed surprised, but Mark exclaimed incredulously, “You forgot that you’ve been driving around for three weeks with a tree in the back of your car!”

Whereupon, my beautiful wife, the mother of all this brood, said, “Mark, welcome to the Cowart family”.

————

My book, A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad, went bad. It did not make the grade as a finalist for the 2007 Blooker Prize. To see the fine books now on the short list for the award, please click here or go to http://lulublookerprize.typepad.com/ .

----

A couple of hours after I posted today's entry, we recieved a phone call telling us that Ginny's father died suddenly this morning. I plan to take a week or so off blogging to travel with her to the funeral and such. Please check back in now and then because I'm not sure if I'll be able to post while we are on the road. Thanks. -- john