The Bruce Report

She was the most beautiful bride in the history of the world. I’m not spinning that “inner glow” mumbo-jumbo that less fortunate fathers are forced to embrace as they walk their daughters down the aisles. I’m talking magazine-model, drop-dead gorgeous.

            Not that this surprised me much. Melinda has always been shockingly stunning – a fact which has caused me both pride and consternation over the years. Suffice to say, getting a date in high school was never her problem. My surly disposition towards the losers who traipsed through the front hallway on Friday nights most certainly was.

            Fortunately, the man she was about to marry, under a heartbreakingly blue sky in downtown Toronto last week, was every bit the measure of my highest esteem: brilliant, funny, handsome and, most crucially, desperately in love with my daughter. Still, for a few minutes, I had her all to myself.

            As the bagpiper began, I stooped to adjust her train. Bedecked in the Bruce tartan, sporran and Bonnie Prince Charlie tunic, I walked her slowly into the church where 80 or more relatives and friends had gathered to bear witness.

And then it was over.

She was gone from me and into the arms of young Richard Whittall.

            Curiously, though, I did not feel diminished. I looked around the nave and saw my parents, my younger daughter and her fiancé, my sister and nephew, my sister-in-law and her two daughters, Melinda’s best chums, and, of course, my wife. I marvelled at the number of Richard’s aunts and uncles and cousins and childhood pals who had dropped everything to attend the ceremony. And an odd sensation swept over me.

I had attended only one other wedding and that was my own in 1980. There, the gathering was tiny, the pomp and circumstance virtually non-existent, the passage from bachelor to husband barely noticeable – a mere formality, by every definition of the word. But here, where the officiating Anglican priest and deacon were none other than Richard’s father, John, and his mother, Maylanne, respectively, I divined the larger significance of this event.

A new community was being born. The union was not just between Melinda and Richard, but between our families. How strange, I thought, that this should actually delight me; that I should feel, somehow, bigger on the day I was giving away one of my most precious possessions.

As we marched out of the church, I realized that how I felt didn’t really matter anymore. Twenty-seven years of paternal obligation had come to an end, replaced by whatever forms and protocols are proscribed by the institution of “in-law”. I could live with that. Besides, I knew I had one last daddy function to perform.

In fact, I had dreaded the prospect of delivering the traditional “father-of-the-bride” speech. What could I say that these two marvellous kids didn’t already know? Could I even keep it together, standing before an audience of virtual strangers? What did I always tell Melinda? Face your fear? Okay, smart guy; it’s your turn now.

And so I commenced.

“I have only a few words to say, which is not unusual since, with Melinda, I’ve never been able to get a word in edge-wise. . .Richard, you already know this, but it bears repeating. . .You are getting a woman blessed with an unbeatable spirit, a razor-sharp intellect, and heart as big as this city. . .If there is one word that describes Melinda, that word is ‘fierce’. . .As long as I have known here, she’s been fiercely loyal to her family and friends. . .She’s been fiercely determined to look out for others. . .She’s been fiercely committed to the ideal of a gracious, open, imaginative life. . .Now, as you two continue your grand adventure together, the only advice I dare offer is always keep that ferocious urgency alive in your hearts.”

Short, sweet, and surprisingly successful, according to the wedding party.

Of course, I get to do it all over next summer when my other daughter, Jessica, weds the man of her dreams. I reckon I’ll be less nervous then, as I, once again, give away the most beautiful bride in the history of the world.

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