25 Years

It is lovely summer day today. The temperature is in the mid eighties with a gentle breeze blowing. It would be a lovely day for a wedding. Twenty five years ago today the temperature was 104 degrees. There was no breeze. It was humid and hazy. It was my daughter's wedding day. In spite of the weather the wedding was beautiful. In the twenty-five years since that day they have built a strong, happy marriage and raised two beautiful children. Perhaps the weather on their wedding day was a sign of life to come. The world may throw some bad stuff your way, but you can still make something beautiful.


I was thinking today about my husband, the father of the bride. He did so much behind the scenes to make that day special.

One day, about a month before the wedding, he dropped the bride off for the final fitting of her dress. (The dress had been my wedding dress and needed some alterations for my tiny daughter.) He then went on to do a long list of errands. When he returned later to pick her up he was unprepared for the emotion that made him sit down and cry. There before him stood his baby girl, a beautiful bride wearing the dress that his bride had worn. He was overcome.

The day before the wedding, guests began to arrive from many places. The grandparents all flew in from California. Our house was full of happy people. The friends and relatives began coming. Someone had to pick Robert up at the bus station in Washington. A car full of wedding guests broke down near Baltimore. My husband calmly put his tools together and headed up the road to rescue them and fix the car. Just as he was leaving another call came in. This time wedding guests had broken down coming from Virginia. He assured them he would be there in about an hour. Somehow he managed to get all the cars running and everyone arrived on time. That evening the bride's car broke down, the car they needed for their honeymoon trip. They were just going to rent a car, but the bride and groom were only twenty years old. You need to be twenty-one to rent a car. Finally we found a used car lot whose owners knew us. They agreed to rent a car to the young couple for their honeymoon. While they were gone my husband got their car fixed and running again.



It was a beautiful wedding. The memories of that day and all the events around it always make me smile.
Happy anniversary to a wonderful couple.