My Elizabeth returned to college Friday before last, to a place far away, and I'm not over it yet. Even when I'm not thinking about her she's on my mind. She's a nagging thought, a welcome burden my heart cannot be rid of.

I must grudgingly admit she's a woman now, all of twenty, but will there ever be a time when she's not my child?

Sometimes late at night, on my way to bed, I veer into her bedroom and well into its darkness before realizing she's not there. This happens when I don't have my wits fully about me. I don't want my wits. I am a creature of habit, and mine is to kiss her cheek, place another on the back of her neck, and, if she's on her side, to lay my head for a moment in that marvelous cradle above her hipbone. There will come a time when I can do this no more. I can wait. Time is necessary to some overarching plan. Why must it feel like an enemy?

In earlier years I'd sometimes find her sitting up in bed when I came in, her eyes closed, slowly, very slowly, rocking back and forth. She's a high stress kid, perhaps a perfectionist, one who worries even in her sleep. I'd sit down and wrap an arm around her shoulders.

"You all right?"
She'd nod.
"You sure?"

She'd lean against me, then flop back down dead asleep, with no memory of it the next day. It happened even into high school, and I worried. Once, in fifth grade, she got up before a class to give a presentation and passed out, cracking her head on the public school's cheap linoleum. She did it again in college, but that time I could not rush from work to be at her side. You can't hop in the car and rush a thousand miles. You have to put her into the hands of others, and trust that those hands will be kind, will see her for the immortal blessing she is, even as you know none can love her with the love you bear.

She is a child of duty and conscience, in matters of both the world and of heaven.

She is my dancing queen. Put her on a stage and she will never faint unless it be part of the play. She will transport you into her world.

My coaches used to preach to us, scream at us, that the game of football was like the game of life. I do not admire them for noticing the obvious - that in life, as in a game, too much of the thrill of it is given over to the chaos of the unknown, our plan for victory to buffeting by the unpredictable - nor for failing to notice the equally obvious, that life is not a game. Life is really like...the ballet, which is not a game but an art, and art too has a plan, an order to its imitation of life, and no life is whole in the absence of the feminine. There is no victory save that found in unity, no glory save that in humility. The artist may be vain, but his self-love is swallowed up in the beauty of completeness, in the execution of the plan down to the most intricately scripted gesture. Unless he lose himself for a while, he cannot find himself, can say nothing that is true.

I figure a man's earthly role and heavenly compulsion, if he can just see the plan, is to make the world safe for a woman to do her thing. He may break away now and then to perform a series of spectacular leaps, to demonstrate his worthiness, but he must soon leave off and return to offer his hand, facilitate her pirouette. He must recede while she ascends. When she falls, she trusts that he will catch her. When she turns, he must stand in admiration. His solicitude is of the essence. Her passion leads his; her limit is his measure. He may touch her in just such wise and no other. When the embrace manifests passion, it is because she has allowed it; her beauty, elegance and sublime vulnerability seem even to dictate its form. The ballet is a lesson in courtliness, courtship, and the first place of love in our lives. It is not divine, but in the honor it gives to woman, the divine seems close by. In the end he must elevate her, offer her to heaven, his hand or a strong shoulder her pedestal. Whether he go to war, perform brain surgery, score a touchdown, dig a ditch, it is so that she might prepare a place of rest to lay his head, lay down his arms, and hold his children close.

They, children, are nothing but trouble and treasure. This one has never been trouble. She has caused no purposeful grief. I do not exagerrate. I would not lie about her. She does not need me to, nor would her honor bear it.

When they are born, we'd like the world to start over without the Fall. We want them spared all physical pain, all anguish of spirit: the cuts and bruises, the broken limbs; the casual cruelties of their fellows, the crushing disappointments of life. We'd offer ourselves to great suffering if it could be so, if the cherubim and the flaming sword could be taken from their watch east of Eden, forgetting in the rapture of our most tender love that such an offering has already been made.

I'd like to think I have every hair of her head numbered, but that's a prerogative of God only. Will he protect her from all harm? He might, He might not. God save me from the day.

Would any man ever break her heart? God save me from my anger.

She gets cranky at night when she's tired, but her heart is fragile. She misses home. She told me so.
Lord, protect her from temptation within, and from evil without.

Make her dreams come true. Make her a stranger to despair, and any seduction of the devil's wile.

How can I ask this, which even saints are not vouchsafed? I am a father, that's how. Once, children did not interest me. I could not imagine being a father. Now, I can't imagine being anything else. Once I was of the world. Now I am in it.

Now I must put her in the hands of Another, trusting those hands to bear her up, knowing that only One can love her with more than the love I bear, that every cell of her being lives within His sight.

I'm all for trusting in the Lord. It would just be easier if I could get a peek at the plan...

I miss you sweetheart.

 _________________

Comments:
Oh, I hope she reads this first thing upon waking up! I'm linking to this!
Posted by KTC email at September 2, 2003 07:06 AM

Gee whiz, Mr. Luse, I wish I had been blessed with a dad like you!
May God bless you, sir.
Posted by Sparki email at September 2, 2003 10:28 AM

Thanks, Bill. Ya got me cryin' here at my desk!
Posted by Lee Anne Millinger email at September 2, 2003 01:20 PM

Ah, these women. How I love them.
Posted by William Luse email at September 3, 2003 01:04 AM

When our children are little, we think that it must be the hardest part of parenting - taking care of the messy physical needs, enduring sleepless nights, anxiety over fevers and rashes and food issues. At each stage, we as parents have joys and sorrows. For me, the hardest part has become letting them go without letting go of them. We are now down to one still home full-time, and another 2 that come and go. After having launched three, one would think that I have gotten used to it, but I don't think I will ever get used to not having them live with us after so many years when we were their shelter from the storm. Maybe I will feel better when and if the older ones marry - and maybe not. Will have to cross that bridge if and when. Meanwhile, thanks, Bill, for putting words down that so lovingly display what we go through as parents.
Posted by alicia the midwife email at September 3, 2003 11:57 AM

Thank you, for adding to it.
Posted by William Luse email at September 3, 2003 06:52 PM

Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
Bravo, Mr. Luse.
Posted by Terry email at September 3, 2003 11:35 PM

Beautiful. Thank you.
Posted by Emily email at September 4, 2003 04:55 PM

More good women. There can never be too many.
Posted by William Luse