Weddings and grown-ups

  • Funny how things in the Church tend to hap­pen in cycles, isn’t it? Some­times I’m going from one bap­tism to the next, or (unfor­tu­nately) one funeral to the next. Right now it must be wed­ding sea­son. There’s one this week, and another one com­ing up soon. But I’m glad I got to start out by going back to my old home­church of St. Barn­abas and cel­e­brat­ing Sean & Erica’s wed­ding, because it may pre­pare me for one of the odd­i­ties of wak­ing up one morn­ing and find­ing you’re not 19 any­more. (The sound­track for the fol­low­ing schmaltzy mus­ing is def­i­nitely this song, which as a child I thought was the most beau­ti­ful song I had ever heard.)

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    I know I’m not 19 any­more, because when I was 19, there was no Sean and Erica. This is the amaz­ing thing. This is the thing that old peo­ple try to tell young peo­ple and sound like idiots. You say things like, “The last time I saw you, you were only THIS HIGH,” as if there’s some answer a per­son can make to that. (“Incon­ceiv­able! Didn’t I hear that referred to as grow-ing?”) But how do you explain in words that it’s only now, when you’re see­ing chil­dren grow up, that you can begin to cope with what a mir­a­cle it is? How do I explain that I still remem­ber like it was yes­ter­day when the groom could sit on a chair in church with his lit­tle feet stuck out in front of him and a church bul­letin open upside down look­ing so darn solemn that you didn’t know whether to laugh or cross your­self? Or that I remem­ber the bride as a lit­tle red­head whose default expres­sion that was a smile so incred­i­bly mis­chie­vous and utterly dis­arm­ing that I’d think Nor­man Rock­well would’ve risen from the grave just to paint her?

    This is God’s joke on us, I sup­pose, that given enough time we’re bound to have the inabil­ity to match those mem­o­ries up with the real­ity. The groom is now a head taller than me (imper­ti­nence!) and writes blog posts of Ran­dom Humor; solem­nity is NOT his forte. The bride is a grown woman who … was a bride, and just as pro­foundly beau­ti­ful as brides always are. (But she blogs, too. And in Word­Press, no less. Erica, soul sister!)

    Hon­estly, life is just bizarre some­times, isn’t it? I mean … good, but bizarre.

    When I was still sit­ting at the wed­ding recep­tion, a friend came over and imme­di­ately asked me my age. I made her repeat the ques­tion, just to be sure, but yes, she wanted to know, so I told her — 48. The thing was, she’d been look­ing at me and remem­ber­ing. My friend has a few years on me — not all that many, really — and she could remem­ber as if it was yes­ter­day when this way­ward 19-year-old showed up in church for the first time. She was try­ing to get a han­dle on the present just as I had been, try­ing to fathom how it is that a strange teenager you knew turns out one day to be a strange 40-something you know.

    I don’t know the answer to that one. I sup­pose we’ll all find out together, given enough time. You appar­ently need for your brain to tell your heart how life unfolds so that your heart can tell your soul to give thanks to God for all His won­ders. You need to gather up info — dates and pho­tos — so that you have hard data to prove that you’re not crazy. I went back into old sketch books, some­thing no one should ever have to do (“What a bunch of junk! So this is what I was doing when I was sup­posed to be get­ting a life.”) and found some of the empir­i­cal evi­dence. Yep, that’s right. The baby in the pic­ture was danc­ing with his bride last week. Life is full of mir­a­cles, that’s all.

    frmichael-n-sean_11-84.jpg

    Related posts:

    1. Late win­ter, early spring
    2. Anniver­sary weeding
    3. Feel the truth
    4. As we set out
    5. Afghan girl band sings the Blues

    November 1st, 2008 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Fr. Michael 11.01.2008

    Thanks, Grace. Imag­ine how strange it all seems to me, the father of the groom! That draw­ing is based on my favorite photo of father and son. It can still be found framed and hang­ing in our hall­way, though it is 24 years old. I miss the lit­tle guy I’m hold­ing there, but I love the man he’s become and the bride he mar­ried. Life is won­der­ful, isn’t it?

  • Grace

    Def­i­nitely. But hey, you got a daugh­ter out of the deal. Two-fers!

  • Mimi

    Amaz­ing isn’t it? This week­end we got to the wed­ding of a cou­ple where the bride is only about 1.5 years older than our son, eeek.

    And, def­i­nitely those things go in spurts, there’s wed­dings, and births, and divorces, and as you men­tion, sadly deaths.

  • Erica

    This post warmed me. I find it pretty amaz­ing myself that the boy that I fell for back when I was thir­teen mar­ried me a week and a half ago. I love the church that brought us together and I love the peo­ple who are around us keep­ing us strong in our faith.

    All of you are respon­si­ble for this bless­ing in our life. Thank you for being part of the com­mu­nity that raised us!

  • Grace

    Such a bless­ing, Mrs. Rea­gan! Only in church do I find that kind of con­stant giv­ing and receiv­ing that flows all the time. It makes it a lit­tle eas­ier to be the thank­ful peo­ple that we should be.

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