Searching for a Daughter-in-Law
We were standing knee deep in the tumbling waters of the Rogue River. We stood side by side casting into a small pool above a line of boulders. The trick was to get the fly to drift through a narrow gorge that led to larger pool about ten feet below the waterfall where the trout line up like kids in a cafeteria line. The reward of a perfect cast
was seeing the trout rise out of the white caped water to claimed our offering. It was in this pastoral setting of tall pines, swirling water, and rock outcrops made smooth by thousands of years of passing currents that our conversation turned to marriage and the beginnings of a family.
My son, Todd, was in a serious relationship with a beautiful woman and mother five years his senior. She had two children approaching their teens and would need a reverse tubaligation to have more. She was also eighteen months from forty which meant serious conversations about marriage and additional children needed to be addressed. She was willing to have the surgery if he really wanted more children.
Todd is a chemist. He works in a precise analytical environment far beyond my understanding in biogenetics. While analytic, his heart led him into the field. His mother died of cancer and he hoped to alleviate that pain from other lives. He put his mind and heart into the question: Do I really want to have more children? The easy part was the medical research. It revealed that the success rate for her reverse tubaligation was
about thirty five percent. With the odds against them, he needed to focus on what he could live with and without.
Todd and her children’s father got along quite well. The father lived nearby and was involved in his children’s daily lives and activities. They all went to the soccer games and the recitals. They shared Thanksgiving meals and Easter egg hunts. They shared beers and shared laughs. It was not a situation where the kids did not have a father figure or the tensions of a bitter separation. Todd understood that he would not be their dad. He
could be a friend, an adviser, a care giver but he probably would not be thecentral male figure in their lives. If they didn’t have additional children, could he live with that?
He did not search for answers alone; he involved friends and family that knew him
best.
His mother died during the fall of his senior year at Texas Tech. He had spent the
summer watching her suffer the revenges of cancer. The extreme pain, the
withering effects from robust strength to fragility, and the inability to help
ease that suffering had a profound effect on his psyche. He rode the emotional
roller coaster as best he could. He got through classes but his relationships
suffered. When it’s hard to have fun, it’s hard to have friends, especially, in
college. After graduation, he moved to Portland, Oregon and lived with his older
sister and her new husband. He needed the familial closeness and the time to
sort out his direction. He delivered liquor in the morning and snowboarded in
the afternoon. The fresh powder of Mt. Hood and the adrenalin rush snowboarding provided helped clear his mind and mend his soul. He was there for the birth of his two nieces and loved being called Uncle Toddy. As he saw his sister and family grow, he felt the need to get on with his life as well.
He left the glimmer of Portland for the agrariancountry-side and university town of Corvallis. He joined a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in the discovery and
development of RNA- based drugs. To quote their website – the company “has
developed and optimized derivatives of its proprietary antisense chemistry
(phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers or PMOs) that can be designed to
target the diseases through several distinct mechanisms of action”. He’s been there over ten years and while we talk about his work on a weekly basis, I couldn’t step in and give him a 
hand for even a minute.
The precision of his work helped develop a precision in his lifestyle. His sister
noticed the difference. “He was a slob,” she told me once. “I would have to
pick up after him every day. Now everything has its place. His house is
immaculate. He’s organized, he plans ahead. Where will we have Thanksgiving?
Who will bring what? Christ, it’s six month away. Now he drives me crazy.” With
the girls, he is still Uncle Toddy. Goofy, rambunctious and with the ability to
bring the decibel level of playfulness to new heights, he is the one visitor they wait for and the one they run the fastest to see and hug.
She told him he was the perfect uncle. The girls loved him and just the mention of
his name brought a smile to their faces. “You have helped in their development
in so many ways. You would be a great father. I see it in you. You love being
an uncle. You’ll love being a dad even more.”
He traveled to Virginia to visit his younger brother and his family over the Christmas holidays. With two boys, Todd was in his element. He taught them new noises to make when playing with their toys and to expect the unexpected when he roared into the
room. He spent Christmas day on the floor exploring with them the wonders of
each new gift until they were too tired to run or crawl another inch. He watched them run to meet their dad at the door and was amazed that his little brother had settled so comfortably into family life. ‘The kid that always had a sports car,” he told me over the phone, “now drives a van. Instead of playing tennis every day after work with the guys, he comes home to play with his boys.”
He spent New Years in Texas visiting his drinking buddy and college roommate. A father of two with one on the way, he too was happy with the sacrifices family life entails. Sure he’d missed a few ski trips because they didn’t want to leave the children with a sitter, but he’d missed a couple in college too when he was too broke to travel.
So we stood side by side, knee deep in the sparkling currents of the Rogue, and
talked about marriage and the beginnings of a family life. He had decided that
he wanted children of his own and that as much as he loved the lady he was
with, the chances of them having children were far from certain. Had they been
married and unable to conceive, he would have considered adoption. “But I have
a choice,” he said casting across the stream. “I’m choosing to find a new lady
to love and grow old with, to help raise a family with and to do all the things
you did with mom.”
Well, that was a few month ago. Corvallis is a small town. It is like the small pool across the river where the fish are lined up like kids in a cafeteria line. You can’t tell from here which one is a keeper or if any, for that matter. It is in this pastoral setting of tall
pines, swirling rivers, and rock outcrops made smooth by thousands of years of
passing currents that my son wants to marry and raise a family. He is looking
for a serious relationship.
As for me, I’m searching for a daughter in law that will love my son and let me
take their kids up to a little spot I know on the Rogue River….where the sun
glimmers through the pines and where family memories are made.
whonoonoos 