I helped with a young cousin's wedding this weekend. It was my anniversary with my sweet husband yesterday so we spent part of it rehearsing the young couples' ceremony. It was all fine, I did flowers for three days, worked my behind off as usual when I undertake these things, then today for the real thing I was the "director". I say that lightly because I'm not my friend Terri, who is what I would consider a professional director of weddings. She has it all down to an art, with her bag of everything from rubber bands to super glue to WD-40. She is the McGeiver (sp?) of weddings...you know, can fix anything with a shoestring and white school glue...she comes prepared. I put a plastic bag in my purse with some bandaids, Excedrine, a couple of safety pins and a needle and thread. I prayed no body would need anything else. Nobody did. The problem I had with directing had nothing to do with headaches or a torn seam. The weather was our foe today. We had known it was likely to rain. Problem was it rained, then stopped, then rained, then stopped. We really didn't have a contingency plan. The venue was very limited....either we held the wedding outside under a tent with chairs or inside with everybody standing up trying to see. Everybody seemed to think I had the answer. I did not. I was just the person they decided to follow. So I made the decision to have the ceremony inside. It was raining buckets at 4:45. The wedding was at 6. We brought flowers and a few chairs inside. Then the sun came out for the first time all day. I was asked why we were having the service inside. I changed it back to the original outside at the very last minute.....as the dark clouds came rolling back into the picture. Long story short, the wedding party was escorted under the tent with umbrellas. The wedding took place, it was beautiful. My sweet love delivered a precious charge to the couple and had them repeat their vows. The rain stopped and everything was fine. I could breathe.
Then a really nice thing happened. I noticed all three of my cousins who lived next door to me as a child were standing within five feet of me. This is so significant because we have probably not all been in the same room in 30 years. It's complicated. We all have our issues and just have lost touch. I was so thrilled that without even thinking I yelled that somebody needed to get a camera! It was like I was Wendy from Peter Pan and all of a sudden I was back with the lost boys on an adventure in Neverland. We all looked like adults....but I was 10! We got the picture, made small talk, laughed and moved on to other people. Later, as the DJ played favorite dance tunes from the 70's and 80's I laughed and sang along as my uncle took the floor with his precious great granddaughter Allana. There has been some distance between her mother and the older people in our family but there was no distance tonight. Everybody celebrated, everybody laughed. Rain or shine, life goes on. People can decide not to see each other, not to talk. We can decide to shut people out of our lives for whatever reason but I hope tonight was a start of laughter to come.
Before I left, one of my cousins hugged me and said "I do love you, you know." Huh, I didn't know, but it was good to hear. I told her that I loved her too and we needed to stick together. We are getting older, we need each other, if for no other reason to remind each other that we are part of something far bigger than ourselves.
Thank you God for weddings, for family, for a chance to celebrate 27 years of one marriage and the beginning of another, for that little girl with brown skin dancing and all who saw her as she is....a beautiful continuation of us.
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