So hear my words with faith and passion
For what I say to you is true
And when you find the one you might become
Remember part of me is you
Remember part of me is you
During my toast at the reception, I quoted these last lines of Lyle Lovett’s Simple Song as advice for Anne Mei and Katie in their life together. I also said to Anne Mei that they express how I feel about her, and to Katie how I will now feel about her. I said that when they have children, that’s how they’ll feel about them. When I sat down, I told my other daughters, Bibi and Roisin, that’s how I feel about them too.
Anne Mei’s marriage marks an official end to a period of my life that began with Laura’s death. It actually ended in March 2020 when Anne Mei moved from Philadelphia to Quincy during the pandemic lockdown. We both knew that that move meant the end of our life together. We also felt it. In a way the pressure of the pandemic and keeping up with her classes (now online) helped to make the move quick. Then Anne Mei had a new apartment, new room-mate, and a job search when classes ended. I had Zoom, meditation, and walks. But my funk is reflected in the fact that I went three months without posting here.
I had short stints as a single parent with my older children when their mother was doing clinical rotations in medical school in distant hospitals. This was pre-cell-phone, and she often had to wait in line to use a pay phone for a few minutes. There wasn’t even that tenuous connection with Laura gone so I had to be father and mother.
As the male parent of a teenage girl, there were some awkward moments. There was also the grief each of us was feeling in our own way. After Anne Mei went to college in Syracuse, we began the process of learning to live apart. Even when she started grad school and we were living in the same apartment in Philadelphia, she was traveling up to Quincy to be with Katie almost every weekend.
We had each adjusted to living apart. Still we knew that the move to Quincy was not temporary. I was no longer her father, head of household. She was now an independent adult with an older parent. Still very much part of who each of us is becoming, but in new ways.
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