Counting down: 13 days until ‘I do …’

Thirteen days until I give the hand of my daughter, Natasha, to her prince, Kory Myrick.

Today I took Natasha to see “The Butler” (super, super movie, by the way), then an after-movie meal at Texas Roadhouse. There’s a part of my youngest daughter that will always be my little girl, but that’s not the first persona I see when I look across the table or watch her interact with kids, talk about her music students, or laugh with Kory. I see a strong woman who has been to Mexico, Cameroon, Fiji, and travels around the country, either as Christian musician or Christian minister, offering volunteer muscle to help clean up a part of New Orleans long after it was fashionable to love on people devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Strong woman. Daddy’s girl. Maybe that sounds like diametrically opposed roles, but I disagree. I’m not going to be first; haven’t been first for a long time already. But that’s what happens when little girls become strong women. And it requires a dad to have a strong heart, trusting his Father to look after his girl. On one hand I think Natasha is still too much like the little girl playing softball, rounding second, headed for third – and coming to a dead stop to examine a colorful butterfly. Back then, I shouted, “Run! Run! Run!” It was exasperating.

Back then, that experience reminded me that going safely from second to third wasn’t as important as enjoying the interruption in front of the shortstop. Even these days, as I still see my girl stopping to watch butterflies, it reminds me how desperately boring life would be without butterflies and those of us who take the time to see them up close.

Enough waxing poetic. Time to get on with the countdown of “How to wreck your marriage.”

Wrecking Ball No. 3 – You’re right.

No, really. You. Are. Right. So insist that your spouse recognize your brilliance, your need to not ask for or follow directions, and the ability to see Rule No. 1, “You are right,” even when you’re not. Of course, a spouse might simply mistake you for being an ass, and that’s absolutely true when you are definitely right and you use that as a weapon against a spouse who happened to be wrong. Very wrong, of course.

Yes, rub it in. And continue to insist on being right, and that being right is more important than being loving, gracious and forgiving.

What’s so great about this wrecking ball is that you can use it over, and over, and over, and again, and again, and again.

It eventually silences the voice that you’ll most need to hear. But go ahead. Be right.

Because, of course, you are.

PLAYLIST

Still stuck in 1978, here’s Lionel Richie and The Commodores with Three Times a Lady.