Dylan Stafford

<<Below is the first chapter of my book about being a daddy. Hope you like it.  © Dylan Stafford >>

            A full moon shone the night I married my bride Marisa. It was October 10, 2003 and we were in our mid thirties, each getting married for the first time. Rhode Island wasn’t convenient for a wedding. We lived in Los Angeles and her family was in New Jersey while mine was in Texas. To entice family and friends we promised brilliant fall foliage. But on our wedding weekend it was as green as July.

            “Son, I know it is your wedding, and we want you to be happy, but have you thought about getting married somewhere closer, like maybe somewhere here in Texas?” My father is a native citizen of Texas, that proud country between the US and Mexico. He prefers to travel in his Chevy Suburban with his multiple toolboxes and his Border Collie Dottie Girl in the back. He always carries a Leatherman multi-tool on his belt and he has the MacGyver-like ability to fix almost anything. He delivered my younger sister in the back seat of a Volkswagen Squareback when the car ran out of gas on the way to the hospital. Going through airport security, and therefore leaving behind his tools, his dog and his Suburban was never much fun for my dad, and even less so after 9/11.

            My mom is a transplant to Texas. Her childhood was in Illinois then her family moved to Tempe, Arizona. She was the homecoming queen of her high school and she still loves Arizona and will call herself a desert gal, but she left Arizona on the long train ride to San Antonio. She went to Trinity University where she met my dad on a blind date and she’s been in Texas ever since.

            In the 1970s, Mom and dad raised my brother, sister and me in a tired, Texas railroad town called Denison. It is on the border with Oklahoma and when I was a kid it was not known for much. Dwight D. Eisenhower was born there and his birthplace is a museum a few blocks away from where my childhood friend Steve grew up. The Denison Dam forms Lake Texoma on the Red River. When we were teenagers we called it the Red Neck Riviera. In The Last Picture Show, when Cybill Shepherd’s character Jacy tries to elope, they are heading for Lake Texoma. Steve’s dad is old enough to remember chain gangs of German war prisoners helping build the Denison Dam during World War II.

            Denison got another famous son in January of 2009, when Chesley Sullenberger landed his plane in the Hudson River. He graduated from Denison High School in 1969, the year I was born and eighteen years before I graduated from DHS. My best friend Travis was taught first-grade by Sully’s mom. That’s Denison, a BB gun and fishing pole, hot dogs and firecrackers kind of town. It is a real version of Anarene, Cybill’s imaginary Texas town.

            “Dad, it is Marisa’s dream to get married outdoors. She always wanted to have a wedding in the open and her friend Patty got married at this place called the Glen Manor House right beside the water on the Sakonnet River. I think you would like it. It is wooded and peaceful and beautiful.”

            Silence on the other end.

            Marisa was raised a cradle Catholic in New Jersey. She went to the University of Rhode Island and fell in love with the smallest state. Her college priest at URI, Father Randy, still served in the area and he agreed to perform our wedding. We booked the Glen Manor House. We sent a save-the-date email. All was well until the Catholic Diocese of Providence told us no, that an outdoor wedding would not be an official Catholic wedding. The reception could be anywhere, but the service had to be inside a church building.

            Marisa was upset. She had dreamed of an outdoor wedding her whole life. “God is everywhere right? God made the trees and the grass too. How come we can’t have an outdoor wedding?”

            “Honey, they spent a lot of money on all those churches. They want to use them.” My pragmatic mother-in-law-to-be Barbara replied. Barbara raised five children and she always looks at things realistically.

            “Geez. I can’t believe we’d have this much hassle in New Jersey. We oughta write a letter.” My father-in-law Brad suggested. Brad is the big personality. He was a physical education coach for an entire career, only to semi-retire and become a small business owner. He’s an energetic Jersey guy who loves family and celebrating.

            We did write a letter and the whole family helped. We crafted our request and submitted it to the Diocese of Providence. We pleaded our case of Marisa’s dreams and out-of-state, elderly guests who would have trouble navigating the unfamiliar back roads of Rhode Island.

            The letter worked, but with a wrinkle. We mentioned in passing that I grew up a preacher’s kid, the son of an ordained Presbyterian minister. The answer we got back was that we could be granted a “dispensation from canonical form” –basically an exception to the rule—as long as my dad would receive the vows. Father Randy would add the Catholic part. We could be outside. It could all happen, as long as my dad would help officiate. That was my childhood dream, as a preacher’s kid I had always assumed my preacher father would perform my wedding. This dispensation sounded good.

            The one problem was that my dad didn’t want to do it. I had asked him a few months earlier and he had said no. I asked him at Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom and my fiancée and my sister Lisa watching. Presumptuously, I had already promised Marisa that Dad would say yes. It really hadn’t crossed my mind that there was anything to do but ask.     

            “Son, your wedding is your day and I don’t want to be the center of attention. I’m semi-retired and my eyesight isn’t that good anymore. Besides, I don’t know the setting and if it is OK with you, I would really rather not.”

            I had nodded and stared at my plate and said that I understood. I had my best game face but I could feel my cheeks turn red. I was embarrassed because I had assured Marisa that dad would do this and I was angry because he had said no. Why couldn’t he just say yes?

            And it wasn’t ‘OK’ with me. I really did want dad to perform my wedding ceremony and in that moment at the dinner table, he declined my request. With my red face, I was doing my best to honor my dad and my fiancée and not say anything to make a disappointment turn into anything worse. I had so expected him to say yes that I didn’t have anything to say. I just sat there looking at my food.

            I didn’t have many expectations for my wedding day. In typical Texas-guy fashion, I hadn’t thought much about my wedding. I assumed the woman I married would have a bunch of ideas and plans and everything would go best if I just went along with as many of them as possible. About the only expectations I had were that I would probably wear a tuxedo and that my dad would be standing up at the front of the church asking us to say “I do.” As a preacher’s kid I grew up watching my dad in church. If the doors were open, we were there. He gave sermons. He officiated funerals. He ran church camps and directed the choir. People listened to him and he was my hero. He performed the weddings of my cousins and I always assumed he would do my wedding too.

            Now he had said no, that he would rather not.

            It is hard when you’re a kid and your parent disappoints you. It is hard when you’re an adult and you’re disappointed, because you feel like a kid again.

            The only other time I remembered wanting something this badly, and this is a terrible comparison, was in 8^th grade. My best friend Travis invited me to see the Van Halen concert in Dallas. Travis’ dad was going to get the tickets and drive us. All I had to do was get permission to go from my dad.

            Dad and I had been working for a couple months converting the attic into a bedroom for me. It was a big project with lots of custom fitting of wood panels and holding of flashlights. Before I asked permission to go to Van Halen, for what seemed like forever, I was the super-helper. I was so scared my dad might say no and I would stay home while my best friend did the most incredible thing possible, go to a real rock concert and come home with a real concert t-shirt, the most amazing trophy my 8^th grade brain could imagine. My plan to improve my odds was to butter up my dad by being the best father’s helper in the world before I mustered the courage to ask.

            I finally did ask and dad did say yes. The 1982 Van Halen Diver Down tour was my first rock concert and a highlight of my teen years. David Lee Roth was his lion-mane, high-kicking best. Eddie Van Halen was the guitar god of the day. It was a pilgrimage to rock and roll and the possibility of being cool. I kept that concert t-shirt all the way to college before I finally lost it. I’d probably still wear it now, or have it mounted on a wall under a spotlight, if it hadn’t disappeared.

            Now here I was feeling like the Thanksgiving turkey, an adult feeling like a kid, mad at his dad and stuffing it out of fear of making a disappointment even worse. This time dad said no. There was no way to butter him up and change his answer. Dad and I lived in different states and we weren’t working on any attic conversions. I had asked and he had declined. My dad is a straight-shooter and I knew he told me exactly what he thought. He really didn’t want to be in the spotlight. His eyes really weren’t what they used to be. I knew that at some cosmic level it would be OK if he didn’t officiate, but I was mad and disappointed and embarrassed anyway.

            Now, four months after Thanksgiving we got this new wrinkle in the letter from the Diocese of Providence. This letter said that the only way we could get married outside was for my dad to officiate. We hadn’t asked for that. We had only asked for approval for Father Randy to conduct the wedding outside.

            This meant I had to ask dad again.

            I called dad from California.

            “Hey dad, how is it going?”

            “We’re all fine here, but it’s dry. We wish it would rain down at the farm, but up here in Fort Worth we are doing fine.” It was the usual Texas weather update.

            “Dad, remember how I was telling you about the request letter that we sent the Catholic Church, asking permission for having an outdoor wedding?”

            “Yeah, how is that going? Have you heard back?”

            “Well yeah, actually, we did get a letter back. We asked for permission for Father Randy to officiate outside.” I paused a moment. “But they wrote that it could only happen outside if you officiated.” There, I said it.

            “We didn’t ask for that, but we mentioned in passing that you were a minister. They said you would need to receive the vows, since we won’t be in a Catholic church. Father Randy can be there to add the Catholic part, but it’s kind of like we need you to make the whole thing work.” I paused again, but he was listening so I kept going.

            “I know you said that you would rather not because of your eyes and the travel and this being our day and you not wanting to be the focus of attention, but this would really mean a lot to us if you could. This is Marisa’s childhood dream to have an outdoor service.” There, I had said it. For better or for worse I had asked a second time. I didn’t tell him it was my dream also to have him officiate, even though it was.

            The pause seemed long in my mind.

            “Well son I would love to help out.” He was saying the words but I couldn’t believe it. “If my officiating can help make the day a success, then I would be honored to help. Tell me about Father Randy, is he a nice guy? I’m sure he is…”

            That was it. The wind had shifted back in our favor, first the dispensation and now my dad saying yes.

            This was February. The rest of the year was wedding details. We were trying to split the cost of the wedding with Marisa’s dad. He would pick up half the tab and we would split the rest. I was in a new job at UCLA but only making about half what Marisa made. Weeks after 9/11, I got laid off my job with the German company Siemens. I had used a lot of savings in the nine months before finding the UCLA job. My money was tight and I was trying to make a good impression on my fiancée and I wasn’t sure how I could keep up my part of the arrangement. Years later Marisa was watching Say Yes to the Dress on TV and I realized her wedding dress never showed up on the wedding budget. She quietly paid for the dress on her own.

            Marisa and her dad both have a “Let’s make it work” attitude about money. Since I went most of 2002 without a paycheck I was in a “Let’s stretch it out” attitude about cash. Before I found the UCLA job, Marisa and I visited Rhode Island over the 4^th of July to scout out wedding locations. She took me to a palatial estate where the final party scene in Meet Joe Black was filmed. I did a double take when we walked onto the expansive lawn and looked at my fiancée, “Marisa, you do remember I don’t have a job right now, right? Do we really need enough acreage to land helicopters?”

            “My grandma married my granddad when he didn’t have a job. I’m not worried about you.” She chimed, optimistic as ever.

            Later I thought maybe she set me up on purpose, that after the shock of the movie set option, any other choice would seem modest and reasonable by comparison and I would say yes automatically. Actually, Marisa loves shopping and we were shopping for wedding locations and it was all fun to her. I didn’t want to disappoint her but even the smaller mansion, the Glen Manor House, seemed like a stretch for my salary.

            While Marisa planned the wedding, I wondered about a bachelor’s party. I wanted to have one but there were two problems. The first was that my friends were scattered all over the world. The second was that I had been in recovery two years, having quit drinking two months before I met Marisa. I didn’t want to ask people to fly from everywhere to sit and watch me drink iced tea. When you get on a plane for a bachelor’s party you expect something spicier than tea. I decided on a small, sober bachelor party and spent a weekend with my dad, brother Jon and cousin Charlie at dad’s ranch in central Texas. We bought a twelve foot tall Bur Oak from a nursery and we planted it in the front of the ranch house, the wedding tree. We ate steaks and told stories and it was my perfect bachelor’s party.

            The wedding weekend arrived and dedicated family and friends made the long journey to Rhode Island and the bank of the Sakonnet River. Five friends from my time in Germany flew from Europe. Many of my Aggie roommates couldn’t attend because of the war. We couldn’t sign the wedding license because we didn’t bring two forms of identification so our good friend Herb arranged a small break-in of our Santa Monica apartment to bring our passports to us. It worked out.

            We got married outside at 4:00 in the afternoon. It rained lightly an hour before but cleared in time to wipe off the chairs. Twenty minutes before our wedding I was standing in a hallway with butterflies in my stomach. I asked my dad to stand guard while I went into a side room to have a quiet moment. I knelt and said the Lord’s Prayer. I asked God to go into the marriage before me, to take the lead and show me the way. It was one of the prayers I had learned in recovery about asking for help. I calmed down. I stood up. I came outside and followed my father to the front of the field to wait for my bride.

            My sister was a bridesmaid and my mom was on the front row beaming. My two oldest friends, Travis and Roger, were there. We’ve all known each other since we were three years old in preschool at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Denison. Travis was my best man and Roger sang the Ave Maria. Marisa’s mom cried as Roger’s baritone voice carried across the lawn. The Ave Maria had been her mother’s favorite. My other groomsmen were my brother Jon, cousin Charlie and Humberto, my senior year roommate from college. We stood at the front as Roger finished singing.

            Between the columns in the back I could see Marisa’s silhouette as the warm chords of Pachabel began. My father played violin in orchestra and he always loved Pachabel. Marisa emerged from the shadows escorted by her father standing tall and proud with his youngest daughter. She looked like she was floating forward as she walked gently down the aisle in the soft, after-the-rain sunlight. Her father lifted her veil and gave her a kiss. Our hands embraced and we looked at each other and smiled. Our moment had arrived. My father was officiating and my mom was on the front row. It was the perfect day.

            The reception was a blur. We had splurged and gotten a band and I danced the entire time. We had a chocolate fountain and my only regret was I danced so much I missed it. Marisa’s college librarian Sue made our wedding cake and her husband Ray filmed the day. Marisa’s Grandma and Grandpa, in their 69^th glorious year of marriage, danced with each of us. My brother came and got Marisa and me during the reception to take us outside to see the full moon rising over the river. He wanted to make sure we didn’t miss that moment.

            Providence is the foreseeing care of God over the creatures of the earth and everyone flew through Providence airport to get to our wedding. God let this aw-shucks Texas boy fall in love with this cruise-missile-direct Jersey gal. He let us find each other and start this life together. It was the beginning of the rest of my life and I was feeling blessed by the possibilities.

 © Dylan Stafford