Monday, September 29, 2008

Turn Around

Back in the mid-1960s, one of my favorite shows was Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, which aired on Sunday nights. It featured specials like Disneyland After Dark (with stars of the day performing at Disneyland), serials like The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh and Gallagher, and Disney movies and cartoons. My most vivid memory from that show, however, was not a program but a commercial by one of the shows biggest sponsors: Kodak.

The ad was wonderfully simple: a collage of photos accompanied by a folk song, which combined to tell the story far better than any ad copy ever could. It began with a photo of a baby and these lyrics:

"Where are you going, my little one, little one
Where are you going, my baby, my own
Turn around and you're two
Turn around and you're four
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of the door"

As the music played, a sequence of photos showed the baby growing up, into a toddler, then a young girl, a teen, an adult, and finally a mother.

"Where are you going, my little one, little one
Little dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone?

Turn around and you're tiny
Turn around and you're grown
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own"

A generation compressed into two minutes. I was a young teen when the ad aired, and the song and images have stayed with me all these years. Watch the ad and I think you'll see why. Here it is on YouTube.

In a move designed to sell cameras and film, Kodak dispensed a priceless bit of wisdom: The seasons of life change quickly, so make the most of every moment. I'm sure we all know this to be true, but our everyday urgencies have a way of crowding to the front of the line. So today's entry is as much a reminder to me as it is an encouragement to you: treasure your family and friends every day; they are life's richest blessing!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

"Her Mother and I Do"

On September 20th, Megan and Ryan celebrated their five-year anniversary. This VERY long post is dedicated to them.

"Her Mother and I Do"
A father's reflections on that long walk down the aisle

We stood side by side at the back of the church, I in my rented tux and she in bridal white, waiting for the doors to swing open and the pipe organ to signal our entrance.

As father of the bride, my duties that morning were pretty simple: get dressed, escort my daughter down the aisle, give her away to the new number-one man in her life, answer one question from the pastor and sit down. What made it complicated were all of the thoughts swirling around in my head. Where did the time go? Had I been a good father? What's it going to be like afterwards? (Time to cue the "Fiddler on the Roof" music: "Where is the little girl I carried? Where is the little boy at play?" Wow. That song was spot on.)

They say that on her wedding day, every bride is the most beautiful woman in the world. Maybe so, but whoever coined that phrase hadn't seen my daughter. I figured she had a lock on first place, and ever other bride that day would have to duke it out for second. And how'd I end up with such a beautiful daughter anyway? Well, that one I could answer: I married her mom. Hey, no false modesty here. My friends ask me that same question... and give me that same answer.

I gazed at her with a mixture of admiration, pride and sheer wonder. My mind raced back to the day she was born. Funny, I mused, the first outfit she ever wore was pure white, too. A cotton shirt, courtesy of the Stanford University Medical Center. Then I realized: that day and this one were bookends – identical mirror images. 22 year ago, I was given a priceless treasure; today I would give it away.

_____________________

The first time I held her, I knew I was in way over my head. Not long before that, she didn't even exist, and now, here she was, a living, breathing person. "Didn't even exist"... that thought alone was enough to make my head swim. And here's the thought that drowned me: I'm responsible for her. God made her, and now he's given her to me... to love, protect, provide for and raise.

Imagine standing next to Rembrandt painting one of his masterpieces. Imagine him handing you his palette and brush and saying, "Here. You paint for a while. But don't worry. I'll be here to guide you." That just barely begins to describe the inadequacy I felt. "Don't worry"? He got to be kidding. 22 years later, standing there all spiffed up in my tux, I certainly looked in control. But I still felt inadequate. Maybe that's how fathers are supposed to feel, lest we start giving ourselves too much credit.

As she grew, she opened up a whole new world to me... or rather reopened it. Case in point: along a walking path near our house grew a row of trees that in the fall turned flaming yellow, red and purple. Not long after she learned to walk, when the weather was brisk, and the leaves were turning, we would walk along that path, just the two of us, staring at the colors, tracing the veins in the leaves, watching the sun shimmering on a spider's web, bending over to peer at our reflections in a puddle of water. It's sad but true that by the time we become adults, most of us lose that childlike sense of wonder. I know I did. She gave it back to me.

Our nature walks inspired me to get back into photography. One spring afternoon, the two of us were outside our apartment. She began exploring, smelling flowers, picking up pebbles, watching a snail crawl along. Looking through the viewfinder of my camera, my eye followed her around. Suddenly I realized that I wasn't part of that picture. Oh sure, I was there, but I was watching from the sidelines. The truth of the moment washed over me: it was her life, not mine. To be part of her life was not my right; it was my choice. I snapped a photo that is still one of my favorites.

That wasn't the first or the last lesson I learned from her. When she was about four, the two of us were driving back home from the duck pond, a favorite hangout of ours. We passed my office, which I pointed out to her. She asked, "What do you do at work, Daddy?" The question was simple enough, but I struggled to form an answer. How do you describe marketing to a four-year-old? I did my best to explain, using the familiar McDonalds ads on TV as an example. Like McDonalds, I try to encourage people to buy my company's products. "Do you understand?" I asked with some anticipation. "Yes," she said, matter-of-factly, "You get people to buy things they don't want." Well, not exactly. Well... sorta. As I reflected on the excesses of my profession, I realized she was closer to the truth than I wanted to admit. Note to self: don't just watch what you do, watch how you do it and why. Because she's watching, too.

My mind fast-forwarded to middle school. As we watched her growing from a little girl into a young lady, my wife commented, "He's out there." "Who?" I asked. "Well," she replied, "Assuming that marriage is in her future, her husband's out there right now." Of course, she was right. We wondered what he looked like, what his interests were, when and how they would meet. We began to pray for our unknown son-in-law. That God would guide his life, grow his faith, protect him from bad influences and surround him with good ones.

Eventually we met this mystery man. It was the summer between her junior and senior year at UC Davis, and she was living at home, working as a summer intern at our church. One Sunday afternoon, we had a bunch of her college friends, including him, over for a barbecue. A few hours later, he and I found ourselves on the patio, just the two of us. The conversation turned to a former boyfriend who hadn't passed the "Dad test." "Where'd he miss the mark?" he asked. A straight shooter. That's good.

We both knew he was lobbing me a softball. Knowing that a father would be a fool to pass up an opportunity like this, I determined to swing for the fence. "He didn't respect her," I said bluntly. "He didn't treasure her. If you ever have a daughter someday, you'll know what I mean." Thanks, I needed to say that. And I think he wanted to hear me say it, too. I liked this guy.

That summer, we watched as their friendship led to dating, which led to a deepening love and commitment. One evening, my wife and I realized: he's the one. After all these years of praying, God had given us the answer. We figured it would just be a matter of time before he asked us for her hand.

A few weeks later, the opportunity came: he asked my wife and me to lunch. Just the three of us. Hmm. His treat. Double hmmm. Well, alright. We knew what was coming. That night, my wife told me what I already knew, "Tomorrow, our lives are changing forever." Funny... even when you know something's coming, it still pulls you up short when it finally comes.

The next day at lunch, we made small talk over burgers, and then he began to speak. About how they had met, how their friendship had grown, and how it had grown beyond friendship. Well, well, I thought, he sounds even more nervous than I am. OK, then, I'll just let him talk. I figured if this wasn't the last time I would be in the driver's seat regarding my daughter, it was pretty close to it. As we sensed the punch line coming, my wife and I smiled. When he finally asked "the question," we grinned.

He noted our smiling silence. "May I take that as a 'yes'?" he asked. I nodded. "Yes," I assured him. "Definitely, yes." My wife explained, "For the past 10 years we've been praying for you. But until now, we didn't know that it was... you." Knowing that you're an answer to someone's prayers could give a guy a swelled head. But he took it in stride. Good man, I thought. Yep, I really liked this guy.

_____________________

The pulse of the pipe organ yanked me back to the present. That's our cue. Big breath, Dave. The church doors swung wide, and we entered the sanctuary.

A few steps into our walk, she whispered to me, "Dad... slow down." Of course. This was her moment, and she wanted to – she deserved to – enjoy it to the fullest. My eyes flashed around to friends and family, some of whom we hadn't seen in years, who'd come to be part of this special day. Each of them had poured a little bit of themselves into these two young lives, and gratitude washed over me. Trying to hold a smile, my mouth began to quiver. Relax, Dave, don't lose it now.

As we approached the front of the church, I turned my gaze forward. There he stood, looking every bit the dashing groom. Happy, nervous, hopeful, full of anticipation, and struggling to catch his breath at the sight of the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Do you realize how lucky you are? I asked him silently. Do you?

We reached our destination. Time for the big exchange. I paused, lifted back her veil, kissed her on the cheek and whispered, "I love you." She whispered back, "I love you too, Daddy."

I'd been told, half-jokingly, that giving your daughter away in marriage was like taking a Stradivarius violin to the zoo and handing it to a gorilla. I smiled at the analogy, then smiled again, because at that moment, it just didn't apply. Not because there wasn't some truth to it, but because there was a bigger truth, a better truth, that applied even more. That truth is this: God gives a father a daughter only for a season. And there will come a time when you must decrease while another man increases. And it will be hard to let go, and it will be bittersweet at times. But because that's how God has ordained it, and because we know that's the way it has to be, there's something about it that's undeniably right and good. A father can take comfort in that. I know I did that day.

There they stood, side by side, just like she and I had only minutes before. And they would be side by side from now on. I stepped back and waited for the pastor to signal my final assignment.
"Who gives this woman to be married to this man?" he asked.

I realized that this chapter in my fathering was over. Despite countless missteps, despite my doubts and inadequacies, I'd finished the journey. I'd taken the life that God had given to me, and had done my flawed best to fulfill my promise to Him and to her. And now, here she stood, radiant, a young woman full of life and faith and hope.

It felt like I was tying a bow on the gift that God had given me 22 years before, and now I was giving it back to him. For a father of a daughter, I figured it just doesn't get any better than this.

I smiled and answered, "Her mother and I do."

Monday, September 22, 2008

Doorway to the Soul

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called music "the universal language of mankind." Music mogul Dick Clark calls it somewhat less elegantly "the soundtrack of your life." "America's oldest living teenager" even trademarked the phrase, so while music is universal, the phrase itself belongs to Dick... sigh. But I digress.

Dana told me about an experience that illustrates the truth of Longfellow's statement. While nursing Lori, Dana began to sing a lullabye. Lori started humming. "Huh?" Dana wondered, and stopped singing. Lori stopped. Dana started singing again. Lori continued humming. This went on a few more times. This doesn't happen when Dana's talking to Lori, just when she's singing.

I thought this was the coolest thing. Not because it means that Lori is going to be a singer or anything (though that would be cool, too). But because it shows how powerful music is, and how deeply rooted it is in us. Music really is a doorway to the soul. It can lift our spirits, bring joy to a broken heart or soften a hardened one. And it has a special way of bringing people together, like the bond between a young mother and her five-month-old child.

Music isn't something we made up; it was God's idea, and it's been there from the beginning. In the 38th chapter of the book of Job, we're told that at the foundation of the earth "the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy." Which is also why movie soundtracks move us so deeply. Even God had one when he created the world!

Hmm... I guess Dick Clark is right after all. ;-)

Sunday, September 21, 2008

It's a Boy!

The guessing is over; it's a boy! Megan and Ryan found out on Thursday that they will be having a baby boy. Here's a link to the full story.

Now we know the gender. Now I can stop saying "it" and start saying "he," "him" and "his." (Which is a relief; calling your grandchild an "it" just sounds so inappropriate!)

What's left to learn about this little guy is, well, everything! What he'll look like. His personality. His likes and dislikes. His talents. His friends. His beliefs. All of these and countless other unknowns are still ahead. But that's the wonder of raising kids; it's a journey of discovery that you go on together.

Congratulations, Megan and Ryan. I'm looking forward to meeting your son!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Celebrating Life Together

Trudi and I just got back from a weekend in South Lake Tahoe. Our godson, Tony Fachner, son of Trudi's lifelong pal Karla Fachner and husband Randy, was married in a lakeside ceremony, and we were priviledged to be there to celebrate with them. We're proud of Tony. Things are really coming together for him.

It was a very sweet wedding with a whole lot of celebrating wrapped around it. And they chose the location well. The beauty of Lake Tahoe is truly inspiring. The evening before the wedding, Trudi and I went to dinner at 19 Kitchen, a restaurant on the 19th floor of Harveys with a fabulous view of the lake. Here's a photo of the sunset.

What struck me most about the weekend was how timeless good friendships are. With good friends, even if you've been apart for a while, you don't have to get reacquainted; you just pick up right where you left off. Where the first words out of your mouth aren't "It's been ages! Tell us what you've been up to," (though that comes later) but simply "Hi! What can I get you to drink?"

That's how it is with Karla and Randy. We can talk about anything with equal ease, from light stuff like movies, jokes and pop culture to serious stuff like politics, faith, and personal highs and lows.

We're planning to get together again soon. And when we do, it'll be like we never left. How cool is that?

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Is It a Boy or a Girl?

Soon we'll find out whether Megan and Ryan are going to have a boy or a girl (see the Ryan and Megan Smith blog for the latest pregnancy update!). Everbody's placing bets on which it's going to be.

The whole guessing game is fun. How fast is the heartbeat? How does Megan look from the back? There are all sorts of "sure fire" predictors. Who knows whether any of them are accurate.

As far as whether they'd prefer a boy or a girl, there are plusses on both sides. If it's a girl, then Megan will have someone to dress up and do girl things with, and Lori (Dana and Jorge's daughter) will have a cousin around the same age, and they can be best buddies. If it's a boy, then Ryan gets to show him how to throw a ball and do all those other guy things, and the Smiths and Hernandezes ("Hernandi"?) will have one of each between them, and a mixed set of cousins would be cool, too.

What it gets down to is this: kids are a blessing, no matter what you get, if you've got the right perspective. Looking back through God's rear view mirror (to borrow an image from Jim Rice) what you're given turns out to have been the exact right choice. People sometimes ask me, "Do you ever regret not having sons?" No, I really don't. Because I've now got two through marriage, and God chose them just as surely as he chose Megan and Dana.

I'll keep you posted on baby Smith!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Play Ball!

When I was a kid, I loved baseball. Still do. Unlike all of my friends, however, I was pretty bad at it. Try as I might, I just couldn't throw very straight. And in my first year in little league, I don't think I got a single hit. I got slightly better as the years went on and eventually could hit pretty well, but I never really learned to throw with much accuracy.

A few years back, my sons-in-law bought me a new baseball glove. We would spend many summer nights playing three-way catch in front of my house. Those evenings are still among my fondest memories of time spent with those guys.

I will never forget one day when we were throwing the ball around, and Ryan assumed the catcher stance that said "Pitch it, Dad." Uh oh, I thought, here we go again. After demonstrating my signature inconsistency, I confessed that I've never been able to throw with much accuracy. He asked to see my grip and made a simple suggestion: drop the ring finger; just use the thumb, index and middle finger. I wound up and let the ball fly.

Steeeee-rike one!

I couldn't believe it. Jorge and Ryan may not have noticed a difference in my throwing, but for me it was like night and day. It felt great. So did the next pitch, and the one after that. For the awkward kid inside me, it was an almost redemptive moment. Now, to be sure, it probably would have taken a lot more than a new grip to help my boyhood ball playing. But one thing was for sure: one of the negative labels I'd given myself so long ago had been erased.

It's amazing how a positive change can not only influence our future for the better; it can also help us to gain insights that allow us to see our past in a new and more positive light. As in my case, when a simple grip change I learned in my 50s showed a young boy that he really could play ball after all.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Nature and Nurture

As a follow-up to my previous post titled "Know Your Wood," I thought I'd share a real-life example...

Every day on my commute to Hewlett-Packard, I drive down Middlefield Road past a row of redwood trees. Whoever planted them probably had good intentions, but bad landscaping skills; they planted them directly under power lines. So what did the city do? Top the trees of course. As a native Californian, I'm especially fond of redwoods. But these have none of the redwood's usual grandeur. They just look, well, odd.

It's as if someone didn't know how a redwood is supposed to grow and is determined to shape it into a shade tree. But this is a losing battle. Redwoods are meant to grow straight and true, and when the leader is chopped off, other growth will take over and continue the tree's push to the sky.

When I was in graduate school studying secondary education, the prevailing wisdom was that we start life as blank slates. How we turn out depends on how we're shaped by the forces around us: parents, teachers, friends, experiences, etc. Those who've raised children knows that this is only half of the story. A lot of who we are - our basic temperament, for example - seems to be there at birth. In the great "nature" vs. "nurture" debate, it's not either/or, it's both/and.

Raising kids is a lot like growing trees. There are different varieties of trees, each with its own innate characteristics. We and the environment can shape them, often to a great extent. But to try to train a redwood into a weeping willow – or vice versa – will not only fail, it just might destroy the tree in the process. As an academic from a long line of academics, this was a tough lesson for me to learn with my own daughters. I learned it a little late in the game, but thank God I learned it.

I’m reminded of the Biblical admonition to "train a child in the way he/she should go, and when he/she is old he/she will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6) The operative phrase here is "the way he/she should go" not "the way you want him/her to go." We need to understand how God has uniquely designed and gifted our children, and then encourage and shape their growth accordingly.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Know Your Wood

Another reflection based on my experiences raising daughters...

Know Your Wood

No one makes a baseball bat out of balsa wood
Or a toy glider out of white ash

Neither wood is better or worse than the other
Balsa is just not meant to slam a baseball
And an ash glider will not soar like a balsa one

Each type of wood is better suited for some uses
Than for others
The wise craftsman knows this
And works the wood accordingly

As wood is suited
So are we all gifted
To some things more than others

Why, then, do fathers try to make doctors
out of artists
Stock brokers out of carpenters
Ball players out of software programmers

Fathers, know your wood
And work it wisely

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Put On Your Dancin' Boots

I've told you about some of the things my daughter Megan has taught me. Now I'd like to share one of the many thing I learned from my daughter Dana...

Remember the Peanuts cartoons where Snoopy is doing his happy dance? Life is just so good that he can't help but dance for joy. Dana's that kind of person. Oh, not all the time, of course. But when she's in a dancing mood, she has a way of making you want to dance, too.

That's why we chose Frank Sinatra's uptempo swing tune "Come Dance With Me" for the father/daughter dance at her wedding reception. No slow ballad for us, no way. When she was growing up, I'd put on that song, and when the music would come blazing out of the speakers, we just had to get up and dance. (And besides, you gotta love a song with the opening line "Hey there, cutes, put on your dancin' boots and come dance with me!" Only Sinatra could get away with a line like that.)

So can I swing dance? No, not really. Can Dana? Better than I. But when it came to the father/daughter dance, whether we could swing dance was secondary. The main thing was hitting the dance floor and celebrating life together. Didn't matter what people thought. We were doing our happy dance.

As our pastor John Ortberg has reminded us on many occasions, life is a gift. Every day you wake up and your eyes see, and your ears hear, and your lungs fill with air, that's a gift, and an opportunity to thank God.

Well, I've got my eyes and ears and lungs and a whole lot more. I have so much to be thankful for. And one of them is a daughter who taught me to dance.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Out of the Mouths of Babes

My older daughter, Megan, turned 27 on August 28th. They say that your kids will teach you far more than you'll teach them, and with both of my daughters this has proven to be true. In honor of Megan's birthday, I thought I'd share one such teaching, er, learning moment...

When Meg was about four, the two of us were driving back home from the Palo Alto duck pond, a favorite hangout of ours. We passed my office, which I pointed out to her. She asked, "What do you do at work, Daddy?"

The question was simple enough, but I struggled to come up with an answer. How do you explain marketing communications to a four year old? Heck, I had to explain it to a lot of adults. So I decided to take a shortcut and limit my explanation to one of our more visible roles: advertising.

Just as McDonald's sells burgers and Mattel sells toys, I explained, my company sells things, too. McDonald's puts ads on TV to try to convince people to buy their food. And in the same way, I help create ads that tell people about the products my company makes, so that they'll be encouraged to buy them. I went on for a bit longer, not quite sure whether my explanation was getting through. "Do you understand?" I asked with some anticipation.

"Yes," she said, matter-of-factly. "You try to make people buy things they don’t want to buy.”

My first thought was that I had not explained it very well, and maybe I ought to give it another try. My second thought was that I might have explained it better than I'd intended. As I reflected on the excesses of my profession, I realized her innocent comment was more spot-on than I wanted to admit. Let's face it: sometimes we get so passionate about pursuing our craft that we forget this important truth: "Just because you can doesn't mean you should." I made a mental note: don’t just watch what you do, watch how you do it and why. Because she's watching, too.

Thanks, Megan. Lesson learned. Happy birthday!