Friday, July 15, 2011

The Wedding

It’s taken me quite a while to recover from "the wedding", certainly not because it was traumatic or overly emotional for me, but because I don’t think I realized how much energy it really takes to run on all eight cylinders for so long and then to catch up when I’ve let my daily responsibilities slack off while devoted to other, more valuable, things...like family and major life events.  After the hustle bustle of such a huge undertaking, there seemed to be almost a crash for me as I tried to cope with a normal routine again.  I remember ascending Mount Etna in Sicily several years ago only to find I was enveloped in clouds of vapor unable to see the horizon or, for that matter, anything more than a few feet away.  I felt claustrophobic.  That is the feeling I experienced after all the wedding festivities had ended, shrouded in a cloud of exhaustion unable to focus.  The newlyweds fled to a honeymoon paradise, but I think the family left behind needs a vacation just as much so that it all "soaks in" and so that we can settle back down to earth.

The wedding day was beautiful in every possible respect.  The bride was gorgeous and so radiant the sun paled by comparison.  The groom cleaned up incredibly well and could have doubled for one of the old-time dashing, romantic stars of the big screen.  If you weren’t already Catholic at the wedding’s full Mass, I imagine you wished you were for you wanted to be fully a part of what was as magnificent as any royal wedding could be.  The music, the priest’s words, the love in the bride’s and groom’s eyes was the stuff of fairy tales.  And the reception was fun, and all receptions are not necessarily so, and no one left without remarking on how in love they could tell the happy couple is, how incredible the food was, and the wonderful time they’d had. I wanted it to go on forever.

With so perfect a day, it’s been difficult for me to cope with normalcy again. And what, I wondered the next day, would normalcy be like now that my son is a married man?  When Justin has been asked what married life is like, he responds that it’s "just like it was before, except now she doesn’t go home at night."  That sums it up nicely.  I don’t know if I thought my own life post-wedding would feel like the aftermath of an asteroid collision or something but it’s just like it was before except now they live in the same house and wear rings.  I’m not sure what I may have feared, but I guess it didn’t happen.  To my utter amazement and joy, life is as good as it was before!  Oh, I still have changes to adjust to; they are, after all, moving to another state, but I’ll still see them on weekends and still sit with Justin in church, and hear Tory sing, and still text, and e-mail, and then let’s not forget the occasional Rock Band nights!

Three years ago, when my stepson Jaime was married, I was privileged to choose and read a piece at his and Joyce’s wedding.  I chose what I thought was a pretty and appropriate excerpt from "Captain Corelli’s Mandolin" by Louis de Bernieres:


Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision.  You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.  Because this is what love is.  Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.  That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.  Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.  Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.


If I didn’t know it before, I know now and have the deepest conviction of the solidity of our family tree.  Three years ago I thought that that reading was strictly referring to the love of one man and one woman, but I realize it’s beyond that one simple relationship.  I know now that the roots our family tree has are completely entwined, never to be disunited.  The roots have deepened, the branches thickened, and the foliage made more spectacular.  We have added new branches, but we are indeed one tree.

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