Readers Digest Version - The dad is dying of cancer, the daughter is eleven. He knows its very unlikely he’ll still be around by the time she’s old enough to get married, so they have a mock ceremony now, complete with wedding dress and all, so he can “walk her down the aisle”
This is popping up on my facebook feed, and the comments are absolutely chockablock with “aww!…so sweet…tears in my eyes…” and so on and so forth. Maybe it’s because I never did the whole “ZOMG! Wedding!” thing even when I was getting married - I’m just thinking …. recorded message to play at daughter’s twenty-first? Tearjerker city. Incredibly advanced wedding preparation? Kinda strange.
And I know, I know - whatever floats their boat, none of my business. It’s really the reaction of the people on facebook that has most weirded me out. A lot of people seem to find this really touching for them. And I just wonder…why?
Yes, I think it’s weird. But even if it is, it evidently means a lot to the family in question, and when you see an 11-year old whose dad is dying, well…“weird” and “touching” go right hand in hand.
Certainly seems oddly creepy-- the girl is 11. And how do we know that she sees herself getting married when she’s older? That said I can appreciate the sentiment behind it.
If it was the girl’s idea and/or she’s let it be known that her biggest dream is having a big wedding with her father by her side, then I don’t really have a problem with it. I can’t relate and it sure seems weird, but having your father die when you’re a kid is also weird, and in a much awful way. If this helps the both of them deal with it, then who am I to judge?
But if this was the bright idea of the parents so that can have something to post on Facebook, then it’s in poor taste. I know not every 11-year-old girl is a tomboy like I was, but how many kids that age are really planning their wedding?
It sounded from the article as though it was really for the dad’s sake. Which…ok, I’m not quite heartless enough to deny a dying guy one of his last wishes. I do think he could have found a better last wish, though.
Even if I were dying of a terminal disease, I wouldn’t do what is described in the OP…but, my daughter of 6 is fascinated with weddings and being a bride. She has been a flower girl in two different weddings, and regularly pretends that she is a bride while playing at home (she uses a princess dress as her wedding dress). I have even play pretended to walk her down the aisle with her 3 year old sister going ahead as the pretend flower girl.
While what was described in the OP isn’t something my family would do, I can understand why someone else would want to, and even why an 11 year old would want to have that experience with her dad. And as far as people’s comments on Facebook…some people are just a bit more sappy than others…such is life.
ETA: considering some of the sappy shit that people on this board post about the things they do with their pets, what someone does with their daughter on their deathbed is tame in comparison.
I recently heard of this happening another time, but it was with adult sisters, not a little girl. I’m not sure which way is weirder. Both weird though. It just makes no sense to me. The only thing that makes wedding stuff meaningful is that you end up married after. Just putting on a dress and walking down an aisle is not meaningful in itself. I’m sorry her dad is dying, but I don’t think I would like these people.
I could see this being as much for the dying father as for the girl herself. So what if she doesn’t get married later? She brought some joy to her dad in his last days.
Yeah, weird. Death IS weird and creepy and stuff. if it brings some comfort to the family involved I’m all for it even if it’s not for me.
Weird but not harmful or anything for me to worry about. I wouldn’t do it but I’d probably attend if I was invited out of empathy for the girl about to lose her father and to whom this is meaningful.
If I did, and I were dying, I wouldn’t be the least bit interested in walking down the aisle with her at 11 so I didn’t miss the event.
BUT. If I had an eleven-year-old daughter, and I were dying, and she was distraught that she was losing her dad and personified that loss as not having a dad to walk her down the aisle at her wedding…in other words, if this were something that she wanted and helped her cope with the awful suckitude of what was happening…I’d wear my best tux and smile the whole way.
And not give a flying ratfuck if anyone looked down their nose at me and opined how weird it was.
The ritual of fathers giving their daughters away has never seemed all that deep and precious to me, but then again, I’m not a very sentimental person. Hopefully the daughter wanted this as much as the father. I wouldn’t call it weird or tacky, but a little showboaty and melodramatic, yes.
I’m not sure this is really harmless. The girl in the pictures doesn’t look excited to be there. I would think that she’ll never be looking forward to getting married in the future. I don’t know of course. I just don’t see how embodying the role of Banquo’s Ghost increases his daughter’s happiness.
I do not consider it outside the ordinary range of human behavior. It’s a tradition for the father to walk the bride down the isle which has meaning behind it. The meaning is not lost with this modification to it, so it the the family following the tradition under their circumstances which will most likely not be able to be done in the conventional means.
I can’t watch the video to confirm that the little girl isn’t excited. But I have to say that if there was any cajoling involved in getting her to participate, then it’s inappropriate. Dare I say, exploitative. I hate when little kids are expected to have the same emotions and level of sentimentality that adults do, because guilt has a way of being used as a cudgle (“If you really love your daddy, you’ll put on the dress and smile!”) Thirty, forty years from now if she should find herself unmarried, whether by choice or happenstance, will she look back on that video with happiness? Or will she have feelings of disappointment, resentment, and/or embarrassment that she was used as a prop in a dying man’s fantasy?
Sounds really bizarre and sort of creepy to me. I’m surprised they didn’t have a mock high school graduation, put her in a hospital bed with a doll so he could be there with her ‘first child’, etc.