May / June 2005
Volume 23, Number 3

So there we all were at the Sujeet Desai concert (see the front cover for more info), enjoying the beautiful music, cringing at the occasional sound system glitch and having an otherwise peaceful day...when suddenly it happened. Right there on stage, Sujeet asked Carrie for her hand in marriage. Wow – what a surprise, and what a wonderful moment!

    But the wonderfulness did not last for long, at least not for me. That is the kind of thing that gets me into “concerned parent” mode. I started thinking...what’s ahead for my daughter, Sarah? I began wondering if Sarah will ever marry. Will anyone fall in love with Sarah and want to spend the rest of his life with her? Oh, I know many will fall in love with her – many already have - but you know what I mean.

    What will he be like? Will he have Down syndrome or, otherwise, some sort of disability? And what will my reaction be when I meet him for the first time? I have a feeling I will already know him when the term “boyfriend” is first used, but maybe not. At that point I will have had years with my older daughter’s (Justine’s) boyfriends to perfect my “let me show you my gun collection” speech, but I do not know if I will need to use it with Sarah’s suitors. Perhaps I will treat them differently than Justine’s. (Note to self: need to start/have a gun collection for speech to be effective!)

    It will be a very trying time for Dad to decide what level of “protection” to afford his little girl. Like any parents, we need to raise our daughter to allow her to someday make her own decisions. But it will be tough to know when she is ready. I want her to learn from her mistakes, but I do not want her to fall too hard. I will need to put “him” through the usual motions – identifying his intentions, learning what kind of work he does, finding out if his parents have a nice boat they can take us out on or maybe great power tools that I can borrow – the usual criteria for judging the person who wants to replace me as the most important man in my daughter’s life.

    I also think about if she never marries, or never becomes independent. I hate to admit it, but I sometimes think of how nice it will be to always have Sarah with us. That beautiful smile...that wonderful, “Hi Daddy!” that she greets me with every single time she sees me...that unconditional love. I know that even as she grows older, so much of what makes her what she is today will always be a part of her.  And how can I not want to be around that every day? But that kind of thinking is selfish on my part. What will determine her future is what she is ready for and what will make her happy. And it is my and my wife’s job to get her ready.

    We still have a few years before we need to deal with boyfriends and marriage - Sarah’s not quite six years old, and I am a firm believer in not worrying now about something you cannot do anything about for a while. I will worry about this later. What can I worry about now, oh yeah...what do we do about school for Sarah next fall? That’ll keep us occupied.