I’m sitting here, this sunny (two days in a row now!—but it’s supposed to rain again tomorrow) July morning, sipping coffee from a mug festooned with a winged Frosty the Snowman hovering over a winter wonderland with a bell and a tambourine, flying the circle of an eternal Christmas, an existential non sequitur since it is, as I said, July. Frosty was the next cup back in the cabinet that restrains our brutally eclectic and metamorphosing collection of dozens of beverage glasses and coffee cups: you can’t just grab one, you gotta make a choice, as none of them are the same, beyond a few matching pairs. One of these matching pairs was right out front, white ones from the Red Cross marked “Four Gallons” and “Five Gallons”, noting milestones in the darling’s blood donor vocation. They stopped taking mine years ago—”Sorry, buddy. We better not mess with that”—but she’s just kept on giving, as part of her way of life, not making a big deal out of it (proving, once again, the Lutheran reality of simul justis et peccator: even part time bitches are saints). I debated whether to serve ours up in the matching Red Crosses, but saw Frosty and realized it was bigger, romance be damned; the deed of fetching is good in itself.
 
Pretty cool family things are a-poppin’, and as the god-danged paterfamilias I’m reflecting on the synchronicity of good tidings, Frosty making one of those occasional passes in his orbits. The bells clang and the tambourines shimmer as the announcement goes forth that Princess Deborah the daughter has earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English (if she lasts the next ten days). A decade’s worth of journeys and work has come to fruition. She is free to pursue her dream of a life and a family. And the god-danged paterfamilias is free of his promise, having kept it; the promise that we would give each of the kids a Bachelors Degree. That was the real gift we gave them at high school graduation, why they had to drive beat-up and embarrassing cars, and so on: gonna give you a bachelors degree. Yep, even if you don’t want to (as I told her, “Don’t ever get yourself in a position where your whole life depends on your husband; where you can’t make your own way in the world”). ‘Course, too late it was that I realized the promise should have been four years of college instead of the degree itself; the frustration of that blunder was often expressed by the god-danged paterfamilias in those sophomore years when they’d cop an attitude of entitlement, and thus, “Everything I owed you was paid when you graduated from high school. Everything from here on out is sheer gift,” with a snarl.
 
So the promise has been kept, and indeed from both sides, for she, too, has had to find her way through it all, tromping through the jungles and deserts of her own journey, accompanied, I suspect, by a father’s voice, nagging, “How long, O daughter?” But it has come and it is now and it is so very, very cool, that we’re planning a party, of course, though she rejected “walking” at some graduation ceremony with that ironic frown that such an inquiry was even made, incredulously: “And why would I want to do that?”
 
Which was a relief, but elicited another god-danged paterfamilias inquiry: “So at the party on our deck, are you gonna wear your cap and gown?” That look; the incredulity, “Are you serious?” even glancing at her mother, “Is he serious?” who bails with “I dunno.” The g-d p: “You betcha. You deserve to be recognized for what you’ve done. I want a picture of you in a cap and gown. Hang it there with your brothers’. I spent a lot of money on this sucker.” “Well, fine,” with that same snippiness of her mother when embarrassed by being made too big a fuss over, “I’ll go have one made somewhere.” Thus we “negotiated”, and I’m gettin’ me a picture of her in a college cap and gown from somewhere to hang on the wall and remind the god-danged paterfamilias of what’s been created here and the giftedness of it all. And she’s getting her freedom, having accomplished the final remaining parental/familial paradoxical expectation: everybody in this family is free to choose the life they want, and get a degree. She did it more zigzaggedy than her brothers, but about the same as her father. So we’re gonna celebrate this entry into her promised land.
 
Frosty still hangs about, because not long before the big party, Princess Deborah’s big brother, Dr. Boner Joel and his wife will be moving from Miami back here to Houston, she with a veterinary tech’s job, he with possibilities, one of them being the bass bone chair of the Houston Symphony, which holds auditions in about eight weeks. That would be an exquisite plum, and the odds in his favor are even slightly better than winning the lottery, since they heard his musical resume and invited him to the live auditions. (Maybe “Houston Proud” will play into it so that this world-class symphony might have a local boy anchoring the low brass; his father a local minister! What a human interest story!) So in a few days they’ll be loading their dog, four cats, and the rest of it into a trailer and dragging it across country, much like Sue and I did after seminary, driving into an uncertain future. They’re scheduled to arrive on Monday, and move into their first (rented) house after years of apartments, up in a suburb called The Woodlands (“close enough to be convenient for family, far enough to be safe”).
 
As the god-danged paterfamilias of this clan I’m licking my chops in sweet anticipation of all of us gathered together, we and them and their partners, to celebrate this next step in Princess Deborah’s path; together as a family, even as we recognize the personal journeys we each take. Beyond fathoming, we thrill to the lives of our children, their (limited) presence itself a gift: to marvel at their lives, that is the blessing.
 
Lost in wonder, joy, and praise.