The Rest of the Story

Hooper Straight Lighthouse prism, Maryland -- Let there be light!

I neglected to add the postscript to the story of the young woman who has entered my life. When I went to her wedding in early summer I had the opportunity to meet her parents who came in from out-of-state. Her father is ex-military and I honestly forget what he did in between before his retirement. He was a short, stocky, healthy looking man with gray hair and a well-trimmed professorial beard. Her mother was attractive but did look a little timid at times as if she wondered how she ended up at this wedding with a deer in the headlights look. The older sister was a very different type of person from my young friend. I cannot explain, but she was the exact opposite in looks, style and personality that one would have expected. In retrospect both the sister and mother looked very intimidated by the whole evening rather than the joy one would have expected. I did talk to the mother briefly and she expressed surprise that her determined daughter had decided to marry. (As an aside, the groom is a very Westernized Chinese American man from Hong Kong.)

The ceremony was performed by a Chinese-American pastor. It was a small wedding with about 60-70 guests. There was the traditional father-daughter dance which looked lovely.

Then a few months later I learned the following:

She had asked her parents to stay with her at the new home over the wedding weekend. They instead brought up a trailer and stayed in a campground outside the city. When I asked why they did this, she explained she did not actually know, but she was pretty sure it had to do with the fact that her father carries a concealed weapon and that is not allowed in the city. I guess he felt safe enough to stow it during the ceremony, but not staying with your daughter and/or supporting her because you needed to have your weapon is something I cannot get my mind around.

When I had the young woman down for the weekend a few months after the wedding, I asked how her parents were doing. She said she thought they were OK, but her father had unfriended her on Facebook because of her liberal ideas and so she wasn't sure what was going on with them. I read her posts and they are hardly radical or in-your-face. She was very calm about this statement, but I cannot imagine how painful this is for her. Being rejected by your parents publicly is harsh.

My step-nephew unfriended me (most likely because of my liberal posts) but I am fine with that, as he is not an essential part of my life. I still like him, but it seems we cannot agree to disagree.  I would only unfriend someone if they were nasty in their posts to me. Their political agenda is their own.

"I was fond of Pop, in a way.  He had been terribly generous financially, but we did not connect spiritually and had become quite detached.  He never said much about my years of cookery-work, our book, or my appearances on radio and television.  He felt that I had rejected his way of life, and him, and he was hurt by that.  He was bitterly disappointed that I didn't marry a decent, red-blooded Republican businessman, and felt my life choices were downright villainous.  From my perspective, I did not reject him until the point when I could no longer be honest about my opinions and innermost thoughts with him, especially when it came to politics.  As I looked back on it, I think that break---my "divorce" from my father---began with our move to Paris."  Julia Child, My Life in France.