Father of the Bride

Greg with daugher Lauren

Seventeen years ago I had the privilege of officiating the wedding of Coach Mike Holmgren’s youngest daughter. It was the natural culmination of a fifteen-year friendship with the Holmgren family.

Mike and his wife Kathy became personal friends when I was a pastor in Northern California. Shortly after he left the Forty-Niners organization to become head coach of the Green Bay Packers, our family moved to Illinois. My allegiance to the leader of The Pack in the heart of Bears Country found me cheering for the Packers. I was definitely in the minority on Sunday afternoons. As a result, I wore my Cheesehead discreetly.

After a handful of years and two Super Bowl appearances, Mike moved to Seattle to become head coach of the Seahawks. And in 2005 when I accepted a call to a church in suburban Seattle, I became the head coach’s lead pastor. And as you might expect, I also became a devoted 12. Amazingly, within a few months of our move to Washington State,  I was cheering for Mike and the Hawks in Super Bowl XL.

When Mike’s daughter approached me about coaching her and her fiancé through their premarital counseling, I was delighted. We huddled at our local Starbucks to review the plays I’ve discovered lead to a committed relationship. Over lattes, we planned their ceremony.

As the big day drew near, I pictured the Xs and Os that inevitably were going through Coach Mike’s head. I wanted to share something with my friend that would be meaningful. Because I had never been the father of the bride at that point, I could only imagine the emotions that were crowding his heart. Putting pen to paper, I came up with the following:

When you stand beside your daughter
and you hear the Wedding March,
I am guessing you’ll feel something
like a sliver in your heart.

Though you’re thrilled beyond description
that your baby’s now a bride,
you will have a strange sensation
like an itch deep down inside.

It’s a bittersweetish splinter
that you cannot tweezer out
cause it’s wedged and twisted sideways.
It’s what good grief’s all about.

It’s a shard that’s caused by memories
of those precious years you had
planting seeds of faith and wisdom
as her mentor, as her dad.

It’s a sliver that you’ll live with.
You’ll thank God that it is there
for it’s just one more reminder
what you’ve shared is really rare.

Within four years of handing the coach my little poem, it was my turn to walk my middle daughter down the aisle. I discovered that what I had imagined was going through the coach’s mind was spot-on. That was back in 2011, but I still remember the lump in my throat and the tear in my eye.

And this weekend I will once again have an opportunity to put into practice the advice I’ve given countless other fathers-of-the-bride. This time it’s my baby girl who will be pledging a lifetime of love to the man of her dreams. In anticipation of the center aisle stroll Lauren and I will be taking, I’ve reread the words I composed for Mike Holmgren seventeen years ago. And even though I’m the one who wrote them, they speak to me of the sacredness of what’s ahead.

Poetry is like that. There is something about rhyming words and phrases that capture what prose often can’t. The emotions that dance in the heart of a bride (and her father) on her wedding day are more easily described in word pictures. In the forty-five years I’ve been a pastor, I have used poetry to create such portraits of life’s sacred moments. The birth of a baby. The death of a parent. The completion of a degree. A couple’s engagement. Unexpected unemployment. A job promotion. A doctor’s dreaded diagnosis. Or even a coach’s Super Bowl victory (or defeat).

But for this weekend, I’m taking my own medicine and practicing what I’ve preached.