Don't You Just Love Weddings....

Don’t you just love weddings? My son just married a wonderful young lady. Her gown was beautiful and he looked so handsome in his tuxedo. Music and laughter fills the air, the flowers are lovely, and the champagne very good.

So why are people crying?

• The bride is crying … “My gown is so beautiful and this is the only time I will get to wear it!”
• Her mother is fighting tears … maybe from exhaustion
• Her dad’s eyes are gleaming with tears as he walks her down the aisle and as he gives the toast.
• My husband fights tears as he gives a toast.
• Another son and my brother are fighting tears – both went through divorce the past year.
• The best man voice cracks as he is giving a toast.
• The maid of honor wipes tears as she gives her toast.
• Around the room there are tears being wiped away and throats cleared to remove the lump that forms just before you burst into tears.
• And then there is me … tears sting my eyes but I know why.

I see my son getting married and realize he really is grown up and doesn’t need a mother any more. I see my new daughter-in-love and I fill with joy. I look at her parents and realize they did a really good job raising her. Then it really hits home, I am crying because of my husband. Being at their wedding, listening to them repeat their vows, I am reminded of my own wedding. Not that my wedding was anything like theirs except in the promise I made to my husband to love him in sickness and health, in good and bad times, for richer or poorer, forsaking all others. I fight the tears because marriage is so full of good things and the bad things just sneak in to make sure we recognize when good things happen. This is what they, my son and new daughter-in-love, will get to experience – so the tears are for all the things they have coming.

ElaineH.