The penultimate moment In the movie “A Few Good Men” comes when Tom Cruise’s sharp young lawyer Kaffee demands, “I want the truth!” Jack Nicholson’s crusty old Colonel Jessup yells back, “You can’t handle the truth!”
It seems that am forced to relive a variation of this scene over and over again with my children. Tonight was one of those times.
Kimba, my second daughter, called to warn me that a certain young man would be calling to ask for her hand in marriage.
She has been attending a church for the last few years and has been growing tremendously. However, if the truth be told, I feel like her father in name only. I say that because she doesn’t really call me for guidance or direction.
So, when she asked the question, I was faced with a dilemma: do I tell her what I really think and feel or just passively pretend in order to avoid conflict and get along?
I decided to put the question to her. Which direction did she want our relationship to head?
I told her that I was willing to do whatever she wanted. If she just wanted me to rubber stamp it, I would.
She said that she wanted to know what I really thought. So I launched out and told her…
I think that asking for my daughter’s hand in marriage is worth more than a phone call. I think that question should be asked face to face…man to man. In went so far as to suggest a weekend visit so we could get to know him a little. Besides, he needs to get to know us because when he marries her, he is also marrying into our family.
After discussing back and forth for nearly 40 minutes, she agreed.
Then she thought of one last potential problem…
“What if he can’t afford the trip?”
“Honey, if he can’t make it from Nashville to Kansas City, he isn’t ready to be the head of a family.”
She agreed with me.
When we hung up the phone, we were closer and our relationship was more “real” than when we started.
