We're Having A Wedding...Did I Mention That?

I don't remember if I mentioned to you, dear reader and friend, that our family is in the midst of a wedding? Once upon a time there were 3 little girls who dreamed of being nurses and doctors, teachers and photographers.  Well, as our third and youngest little girl grew, life began to take her different directions, as it will for all of us. So on the road to school in another state to work on becoming a registered nurse, she met someone.  A boy who loved animals, his family and friends and always had a ready smile. It didn't take these two beautiful souls too long to integrate together and know they had found their future. It takes some families a little longer to integrate, but then comes this process where she is going to join into a new family in another state, and we are going to accept a new boy into our family. We are rather like the March's of Concord-we have had many boys come into our family with whom the girls have performed drama, singing, rock bands, duets, dialogues, haunted houses, synchronized swim routines, commercials, movies, plays, newscasts and charades.  We have had many boys like our girls and give them jewelry, car rides, games, music, flowers, event tickets and come to our table to play board games, cards, dice.  But this one is different and I think we all knew it right away. So, came the inevitable question and they joyous affirmative, thus setting in motion a process where every thought, question and shopping trip turns to The One Subject:  The Wedding.  I've been married at my own ceremony.  My husband has officiated many ceremonies.  We just went, we didn't know the months, weeks, days, emotions and aches that actually go into planning an event for two people you love who love each other. We've been through having our routine change as George Stanly Banks had.  We didn;t have the word "pit" on our invitation, but we came close with a town in the other state! We've been through the crazy ideas of Haank and his dear assistant Howard Weinstein.  We recently approached the Tearing the Hot Dog Buns Package and Not Paying for the Superfluous Buns Stage. We were near Having to Spend the Night in Jail Stage.  Then something remarkable happened:  under the tulle and satin and netting and cake and bouquets and reception food and gifts and invitations, you catch a glimpse. It's a small, quick glimpse, to be sure.  But it was there, and you saw it:  a glimpse of the little toddler who clung to you for decisions, who could be at once a creature of the devil and God's most precious cherub.  It's still her, she's in there, and he is there too, a sweet precious cherub who is trying so hard to deal with everything coming at him from his love and his two families. We got centerpieces made, ideas nailed down and real communication going on-I think we are moving into the Nina Smiling and George Appreciating Their Friends Stage. Very soon now we will be moving into the vestiges of early spring and it gives me such hope-not just the hope that a wedding ceremony will go beautifully, a reception will be relaxing and fun and photographs will capture all the magic of the Glorious Day; but also the hope that life goes on.  Our little girl is entering a covenant relationship with a man who will love an support her, that we will have survived the difficult days of winter and will come out on the other side to the glorious and radiant days of spring, when all our children will be happy , successful and well on their way to their destiny, and my dear husband and I can sit back and watch it unfold with the same enthusiasm and pride that we watched their childhood performances with. We are having a wedding and it will be beautiful, relaxing, meaningful and a new beginning.