The Big Wedding

I can remember the moment…

The doctor handed me my first son. And that feeling overcame me. A feeling of ultimate responsibility. No more jacking around now. Here he is…and he is probably needs to go to college…and he probably will suffer from the dreaded “Dreith Teeth” thus forcing orthodontist bills….and he’s gonna need to go to basketball camps because he most assuredly will be a Civic Memorial Eagle.

It all wooshed through my mind as I held him for the first time. My God….you have given me the ultimate wake-up call. I have to be an adult now. This baby needs a Dad.

This week my baby will be married. I just wrote down on my packing list that I needed to find a handkerchief because I know as tough as I like to think I am….I will struggle with emotion during this ceremony at Bethalto’s Zion Lutheran Church. Not because I will be sad….rather….because I am so grateful to have been a part of his life. Damn, I’m tearing up even writing this blog.

Andrew Michael Dreith will marry Alicia Nicole Oehler this coming Saturday. I am pleased with this union. But I am also sure that my mind will go into overdrive with memories of my life in Bethalto and my journey as a father. He was there when I realized the awesome responsibility of fatherhood…and he was there during some of the most challenging times in my life. Literally there as I struggled to piece my life back together following my divorce from his mother. He was strong for me. But then that is the way he has been most of his life.

He didn’t have God-given athletic skills. He simply had to work harder than most. In football, it was no fun being a Dreith during the 2000 football season when about a dozen players were suspended for drinking and his parents supported the school administration. In basketball, he might not have led the team in scoring, but no one was willing to give up his body more often to take a charge than number 21. When he graduated from my college and went on to Eastern Illinois, he lost his way. But he found it and earned his bachelor’s from Missouri Baptist University.

He as a coach and now he is a businessman. He found his future wife at the most cherished event on the Bethalto calendar…and on hallowed ground. He first met Alicia at the Legion Beer Tent during the Bethalto Homecoming. It doesn’t get better for a Bethaltonian.

My favorite Andy story was when he got his first sports uniform as a soccer player at the age of six. The ball would go here….and the ball would go there….and Andy didn’t have a clue. He was totally oblivious to the whole concept of kicking the ball towards a net. I, as the father who had grandiose dreams for him….was truly frustrated that he was not competing.

So I devised a plan. I told Andy that each time he touched the soccer ball with his foot…and kicked it….I would give him a dime.

And it worked.

The next game he was flying all over the field and kicking the ball with authority.

At halftime, I stuck my head into the huddle to give him a pat on the back.

He spotted me and barked out:

“That’s seventy cents Dad!”

At that moment, I knew I was dealing with a rascal.

This weekend my rascal gets married.

I pray God’s blessings on him and Alicia.