A Proud Dad

 

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of attending a San Antonio Symphony Orchestra mini-concert for elementary school children at Laurie Auditorium (Trinity University). As if that wasn’t enough of a treat, I got to sit in the front row and watch my 17 year old daughter and her school of dance classmates perform to the music of the symphony. What an awesome time it was. I was so proud of my “little girl”.

The concert and seeing my daughter dance took me back in time on two levels. One, I recalled how much I enjoyed the field trips that my grade school took me on to hear the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Hearing the classics from Mozart, to Beethoven, and others was pretty cool to me back then. Those outings were a nice departure musically from the usual rhythm & blues, soul music, and rock that I was very much into at the time. My classmates and I would get to ride a school bus to some nice venue like Butler University’s Clowes Hall, or to one of the nice theatres in downtown Indy. We’d be in the huge crowds of school kids, all of us energized by the field trip and getting to miss classes legally. And I remember the teachers who accompanied us yelling and trying their best to keep us in check or at least keep us to a reasonable semblance of order. Those concerts were a nice escape from the usual. Sometimes we even had assignments to complete during the programs, like listening for certain things in the music and answering questions about the composers. I think those assignments were just to keep our attention from waning.

The other way that yesterday’s concert performance took me back was in seeing the amazing transformation of my little girl from a cute, chubby little bumblebee dancer on stage at Park Forest’ (Illinois) civic center in the mid 1990’s, to the cute little ballerina performing her first recital in San Antonio at St. Mary’s Hall a few years later, to this beautiful, 5’10” willow of a 17 year old (yes, I‘m biased). What an absolute blessing to witness that transformation!

When God blessed us with a daughter I had no idea the kinds of emotions and feelings I’d have. Raising our rough and tumble son was fairly easy for me, raising a daughter is/was much more challenging and seems to require more compassion and a different kind of understanding. But I’m loving this raising of a daughter, it’s quite an adventure and I count it a real blessing (most days). Days like yesterday at the concert really drive home just how precious and special raising a girl is. Thank you Lord.