Our 21 year old daughter, Naomi graduated from Nyack College in New York last weekend with a degree in youth ministry.  We got to spend four glorious nights in Nyack with all three of our girls.  Jo, 23, flew in from Austin, and Rose, who is 13, of course, came down with us.  Baccalaureate was beautiful; The graduation ceremony was long, but very nice.  The music was terrific at both: hymns, black Gospel, classical, contemporary worship. 

The most memorable part of the weekend, though, will probably be the trip back from the graduation to the motel.  As we pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed that I had no power steering.  Alarming, yes, but that is not uncommon on cold mornings for the first few minutes.  Granted it was not cold or morning, but I figured (hoped) that's all it was.  Then, less than a mile into the trip, the heat gauge spiked all the way to its highest reading and the battery light came on.  Not being a car guy, and being late enough on a Saturday evening that no garages were open, we were in a bit of a fix. 

We tried a few things, but nothing helped.  We finally had to decide: do we try to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge on a very congested Saturday evening - a bridge without a break down lane, or do we get off the last exit before the bridge?  We decided to pull off in Sleepy Hollow, and we found an empty parking lot.  The girls went into a nearby grocery store and bought pre made sandwiches, salads and sushi, and Naomi's graduation dinner was from Shop Right.  Meanwhile, a friend of hers was called, and he was on his way over the bridge from the Nyack side to return us to the motel, and AAA was on their way to tow our van to a local garage.

I was so discouraged.  Why did this have to happen on Naomi's graduation night?  Yes, Naomi is an introvert, so she didn't have a big dinner party planned like when Jo graduated.  It was just going to be us five at a local restaurant, but still... even an introvert deserves better than grocery store sushi.  Then, through my tears of anger, I heard our youngest, Rose, say, "At least we're all together."  I melted.  she put her finger on not only what is most important to me, but what is important to Naomi as well.  We were together.

As we continued to wait, I read aloud to my girls, a hobby we have enjoyed since they were babies, and continue to do with Jo via Skype to this day.  We were in the motel by 8:00, and had an extra day all together as we waited for the van to be repaired.

And the truth is, many of my best moments with Naomi have been when we were expecting something totally different would happen.  The evening when I was driving her home from piano lessons in high school, and the van couldn't get up the icy hill less than a mile from home.  We sat in the van on the side of the road and talked and laughed until the plow came almost an hour later.  There was the Easter when she was perhaps eight or nine when we waited in the emergency room because a dead tree fell on her head (which is, itself, a long story).  I taught her fine art of turning rubber gloves into balloon replicas of cow udders.  There was the day at the beach when suddenly all the family fun was interrupted when she sensed a migraine coming on.  We spent the rest of the afternoon laying on a blanket as I read Lemony Snicket books to her.  Even when she was two, and my wife was in a car accident, we spent  a week together in the pediatric ward of Maine Medical Center as she recovered from seemingly devastating injuries.  I knew she was getting better when she wanted to play tag in the hallways! There was the basketball practice when she blew out her knee and cried all the way home, and I did my best to just listen and encourage. 

None of these things are things I would ever wish to have happen, but at the same time these were some of my best Daddy moments ever.  So why not one more on graduation night.  I love you, Toots!