A father watching his daughter marry

MARCUS A father raises a child to leave him. That is the design. Do not grieve what was always going to depart.

LAO TZU The branch holds the leaf, and then it doesn't. Both are correct. The grief and the letting go are one motion.

ALAN WATTS "My" daughter. Listen to that — MY. You never owned her. You were the doorway she walked through to get here.

MARCUS Doorway?! I fed her. I drove her to school. I stayed awake while she had fevers.

ALAN WATTS Marcus, those were beautiful acts of the universe loving itself. Stop billing for them.

LAO TZU The water that fed the tree does not demand the fruit.

MARCUS Easy for you two, sitting under trees with no children, to tell me how to feel at my daughter's wedding.

ALAN WATTS Now we're getting somewhere. The anger IS the love. Don't dress it up as philosophy.

LAO TZU He is right, Marcus. Cry at the wedding. The dao does not forbid weeping.