I received a wedding invitation in the mail today. One I have been expecting for a long time. It was from a wonderful young lady who chose to take my grandson into her heart a long time ago-- and now has said, “I want to live my life with you.” All my grandchildren are special to me but Michael has a little edge. For one thing he is my namesake and that is special to me. “I know Mike, it was your dad and mothers doings to name you like that but it is special to me just the same. It’s helped me over the last twenty years to be a better person because I never wanted to bring shame, onto that name, knowing you had to wear it too.”

One other thing that makes Mike special to me is his high values and ideals and especially in a world that is constantly tugging our young people in other directions. Mike has shown others and me that he values love and respect for others because he has displayed that in the way he carries and conducts himself. The love he has for his family and for his bride to be is obvious. This is the fourth of my eight grandchildren to get married so I’m not new at this. Regrets. Only the fact their grandmother isn’t here to share in it.

I would be disingenuous to not say that I do have one more regret. One Mike and his fiancé had no part in. My regret is seeing these two young people going out into the world, when my generation has done its best to make it hard for them. We have saddled them with enormous debt, spending money this country doesn’t have, for useless wars and give away programs and while we are bowing out, they’re left holding the bill. We have taken most of the credibility this country had when I was Mike’s age and blown it in a never-ending struggle to achieve world dominance. All we have to show for it is, living life one day at a time bouncing from crisis to crises.

I genuinely hope that Mike and his Fiancé have not lost their resolve, as I seem to have. I hope that they and their generation will at some point turn this country around and bring it to its senses. I hope that someday when his son takes a wife or his daughter takes a husband, the mess we are in will behind them and he won’t have to write anything like this. That truthfulness, integrity, honesty and love will be words that will become commonplace again. That this country will once again be seen as the shining city on the hill pointing the way for others. We live by examples in life and that goes for the bad ones as well as the good ones. They both point the way to what works and what doesn’t. We’ve given you most of the bad examples Mike. Maybe that’s not a lot for us to cheer about, when the best you can do is only be used as a bad example but it is something to use.

I hope and pray that your life together will be blessed and that maybe someday you will remember me not as someone who just wanted to gripe about things but someone who loves you both so much and want’s you both to love and cherish each other for the rest of your lives. God bless you both and God bless America.

Grandpa