The Empty Nest

God willing, my last daughter will wed on next Saturday, 14 November. For my wife Linda and me, this is a great turning point. We have had a child in our home for thirty-three years. That is about to end. We now come to that experience that is known as “the empty nest.” So please suffer a father to pour out his heart.

As I muse over the last thirty-three years, I have a lot of mixed feelings. Like most parents I have my share of regrets. If I had it to do over again, there are things I would definitely have done differently. Living day and night with me, you can believe that my daughters have seen my bad side big time. But overall I have to say that I tried to be a good father. To date, all my faults notwithstanding, my girls all love me dearly and respect me highly. The things they say to me in cards for Father’s Day and my birthday often convey their deep appreciation for the lessons I taught them. But more than the cards, I look at the lives they live and that, above all, is the greatest gift that they can give to me. This gives me the satisfaction of knowing that I did something right with those precious lives that God bequeathed to my care.

When my first daughter married, we came home from the wedding only to find a letter from her on our bed. We read the letter and released a flood of tears. The letter expressed her love and appreciation for us and all we had done for her. Of all that she wrote, the only thing that stands out in my memory is the special mention she made of appreciating the model that our marriage had been to her. I once read that one of the greatest gifts you can give to your children is a good marriage. I firmly believe that.

Now that my wife and I face the empty nest together, a good marriage is all the more important. You see, it will just be we in this house most of the time. If we couldn’t stand each other, the empty nest would be a thing to dread. For there will no longer be a child between us. Our daughter will not be here to keep conversation going. No more will we hear the garage door open announcing her arrival home from work. No more will she be a regular presence at our dinner table. No more will we hear the stirrings in her room downstairs. No more will we have the weekly visits from her lover coming to court her and filling our house with their lively conversation and laughter. She will be on her own now living under the authority of the man who will be her husband. Dad will be the number two man in her life. Well, I have been that already, but now it will be even more so. Now she will be bodily removed from my continued surveillance. And Linda and I will return to where we started: just the two of us at the table. We will now face each other with gray hairs, wrinkles, and a wealth of memories good and bad that we did not have when we started. But thank God, we will sit there still in love with each other, more in love than when we began. This will surely help to smooth the transition.

Other parents who have experienced the empty nest speak of it positively, some very positively. And I must say that in one way, Linda and I are looking forward to it. I prayed today that God would give us strength and health for some years to come so that we might enjoy this experience together. Yet in another way, we feel sadness at turning this page in the book of our lives. We have enjoyed our girls. Thanks be to God, none of our children has ever caused us any serious trouble to date. They have been a joy and still are. It is a blessing to watch them as they raise their children. And, of course, the grandchildren are a continual source of great joy. It is as my mother often says: “They are the joy of your old age.” I am blessed to have a family in which we all love one another and enjoy being together. When we are all together I sometimes feel such a sense of blessedness in being the patriarch of this clan. In fact, one of my son-in-laws affectionately calls me patty for patriarch.

Please do not think I am foolishly boasting when I say this, but if ever God has blessed a man on this earth, He has blessed me. The patriarch Jacob expresses my sentiments exactly:

Genesis 32:10  I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant….

Unworthy though I be, I have been the object of unspeakable favours from such a kind and merciful God. Of all the mercies God has extended to this poor sinner, my daughters are among them. When God gave me those girls, He certainly was not dealing with me according to anything I deserve. He could have given me children of Belial that would have been a source of continual sorrow. I deserve as much and worse.

As I muse on these past thirty-three years of raising my daughters, I can honestly say that we have never known the want of anything we have needed. I have relied on the words of Psalm 23:1 and proved them true: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” And it rejoices me no little to know that this same Lord is also the shepherd of my daughters as their faith in and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ attest. I am blessed to watch as He provides for their wants as well. And the good Shepherd will still be taking care of them when I am long gone.

Although my daughters are all now grown and out on their own, there is one thing that will never change: they will always be my babies. Oh, I won’t treat them like that. But in my heart I have that same feeling for them that I had when I first cradled them in my arms. After my father died, I was given a New Testament that his father had given him. I never knew my grandfather, as he died when my dad was only sixteen years of age. My grandfather gave this New Testament to my father on 25 October 1940. It is now in tatters. But in the cover a prayer is inscribed in my grandfather’s beautiful handwriting. This is the prayer that is upon my heart as I send off my last daughter. It is simply this: “God take care of my baby.”

I hope I have not wearied you with my sentiment. I close with tears.