DH and I are both godparents (along with a family member) to the eldest child of some of our oldest friends. We were both touched that they asked us, despite the fact that DH and I are firmly atheist, and accepted without considering it deeply. Coincidentally, our eldest child was also born within a month of our godchild. A christening was never something that we would have considered ourselves (being atheist) , but no doubt we would have asked our friends to be godparents if we had.
I arranged special, personal gifts for the christening and for our godchild’s first birthday, sent birthday cards and/or a gift in the early years, and a card and gift when they started school. After that I’m afraid it sort of fizzled out. I wasn’t christened myself and so have never had godparents, and as far as I know my DH has never had any particular involvement from his (I don’t even know who they are), so the whole idea of godparents had never been something I’ve given any importance to. And a small, ungenerous part of me (that I’m not proud of) felt odd to be recognising these milestones in our godchild’s life when it wasn’t reciprocated with our PFB, just because we didn’t want a ceremony we don’t believe in (friends are also atheists btw).
Fast forward 12 years, and I am older and wiser, and I feel a bit crappy that we’ve failed in our duties towards our lovely goddaughter and our lovely friends. Our friends have never ever mentioned it, but I feel sad to think that they must be at least a bit disappointed and perhaps regret their decision to choose us. Do you think it is too late to resurrect things somehow? If not, can we do it in a low-key way, without it seeming weird? Or do you think, objectively, that we owe our friends a proper apology?
(In case you are wondering where DH is in this - he has many, many good qualities, but being aware of this sort of stuff is not one of them, unfortunately. I doubt he has given any of it a moment’s thought).