My Son, The Ringbearer

The Village Wedding

My Dad called for my son’s eighth birthday. “I have his picture next to my bed,” he said. Every time I look at him, I think about him at Joanna’s wedding. I remember how he cried about the bubbles. That was great.”

“You know he wasn’t really crying about the bubbles, right Dad? He was just overwhelmed at everything at the moment.”

Really I think he was crying in reaction to seeing his grandfather in a wheelchair, but I didn’t say so.

I didn’t write much upon my return from the wedding because there was such a whirlwind of many mini-stories playing over in my mind. My Dad’s statement reminded me of one small part of the wedding worth dwelling on, if only because it will probably be one of those moments that are frozen into my son’s mind forever.

Going to a wedding is a far different experience than being in one. All the family dynamics come to play at a crescendo, for better or for worse (usually both). The adults are all caught up in their own personal dramas. I think we sometimes forget how it all must seem to a child.

In our case, we were traveling from New York to Tennessee and meeting the groom’s family for the first time at the wedding rehearsal. We arrived at 2:00 in the morning, the day of the rehearsal dinner. The children got their energies out at the pool, getting sunburned in the process, before the big pre-nuptial event. They did great, carrying out their instructions, and were made to feel welcome by all.

When my son came up the aisle, I replayed the memory, side by side with the present, of my little brother, at the age of 4, coming up the aisle with the ring for my own wedding. We had sewn the ring into the pillow so it wouldn’t get lost. When the best man tried to take it off, he had a nervous moment trying to get it detached!

Then my little sister came up the aisle, preceded by my two older daughters, and again I had a flashback to my own wedding, when she, at the age of 8, sweetly walked up the aisle in a lavender dress with a small bouquet. Not on purpose, I too was wearing a lavender dress at her rehearsal, and all these memories flooded back to me as she walked up the aisle. I couldn’t stop the tears from trickling down my face. When we were all together at the altar, the minister looked at my red nose and said, “I just love sisters.”

The next day was the wedding. We were all up early. The children showered and dressed, and we ladies and the children all traveled together, while my husband cared for our toddler. When we arrived, a hostess was ready to take my son over to the house where the groomsmen were getting ready. I insisted that I would take him myself. The poor little guy was in the company of a great many big guys. Fortunately, he knew both the groom and my brother. I gave my brother the charge of him and ran off to join the ladies.

Right before the wedding, my Dad came into the church, in his wheelchair. His health had been worrisome as of late, as he suffers from multiple sclerosis, and none of us were sure if he would be able to make it. I hadn’t seen him in five years. He was very thin and frail. I had tried to prepare my children for his appearance, but even I am never quite able to deal with the change that time brings upon him in my absence.

My sister came into the entryway and cried a little at seeing him. She was really happy that he had been able to make it.

The wedding went smoothly, beautifully, almost surreally (for me) and I was able to keep myself in control emotionally. The kids did a terrific job preparing the way for the beautiful bride.

At the end, we all came outside and waited for the couple to come out. Bridesmaids handed out bubbles to be blown for the pictures. The couple entered their vehicle and did a fake exit, driving around to the rear of the church for more pictures to be taken inside. I found my children and discovered that my son was quite upset. “I didn’t get any bubbles!” he said, his lower lip trembling.

“How could this have happened!” I exclaimed.

A bridesmaid came up to me, prodding me to come inside for the pictures. “I’ll be in in a minute, I said,” grabbing some bubbles from the basket that dangled from her arm.

Then my Dad rolled up to us. “This is your Grandpa,” I said to my son. And he burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” asked my Dad.

“He didn’t get any bubbles,” I tried to explain.

I received another reminder that they were waiting for us inside. I’m afraid I might have glared at the messenger. Here was a moment that my son might never forget, and I wasn’t going to rush through it until he was okay with everything.

My husband found us, and brought me my toddler, who also was very upset at having been separated from her mama. Her comparative outrage did some good in settling my son. Finally, we all went inside, and all went fairly smoothly from there.

It may seem puzzling why this might be a positive memory for my Dad. On a happy day, why would one want to remember the tears that occurred for ten minutes of it?

“He was just being a boy,” says my Dad.

And I think that’s it. Boys keep it real. If they are in a mood, they pout. If they are happy, they smile from ear to ear. You never see a little boy with a fake smile on his face, and they are usually not able to stifle their giggles.

In the middle of a smiling crowd, where some adults might be smiling to hide personal sadness, or to be polite and sociable, he was able to express his true emotion. Later, he would be running around by the lake, laughing and dancing. Whatever his actions, they were true.

So when my Dad sees his school picture sitting on his side table, with the same smile that my little brother has always had, he can see it all: the tears, the laughter, the genuine boy-ness. That still shot, combined with the living memories, will sustain him until our next visit.

Lightheartedness

When my mother called last night, I gave her little chance to tell me why she had called. Barely pausing to take a breath, I told her how my nine-year-old had had a fever all weekend and my six-year-old had thrown up in his bed and slept in it.

“And yet you tell me this so lightheartedly,” she mused.

I could not explain my carefree attitude except by the grace of God. “Laughter is the heart’s best medicine,” Proverbs tells us, and somehow the capacity for laughter had been sent me as a much-need gift overnight.

Certainly I was not seeing things so well early on Sunday. Halfway to church, we realized we had left the offering envelope at home. After dropping my husband and the older children at church, I went back to retrieve it. Coming in halfway through the mass, as soon as I found a seat the baby started acting up. She wanted every hymnal in the pew. She wanted to stack them up a certain way, then put them back, then hold them all at once. If she did not get her way, she would shriek. Even half a mass was too long for me.

Once she was tucked in for her nap, we started a project I had not looked forward to. We had left the Christmas tree and lights up until January 6, and my husband was anxious to take them down. I served lunch and retrieved the Christmas boxes from the garage to get them set up. Then I went food shopping.

When I got home, the lights were down and away, and the tree was at the curb. My husband had vacuumed and swept. All the ornaments were neatly laid on the dining room table. And yet I grumbled. Each of the decorations had its own box, which it had to be laid in precisely. Then each individual box had to be packed into a larger box in such a way as to maximize space and minimize breakage possibilities. The chore seemed so depressing to me and I moped through it for hours.

After the children were in bed, I noticed the sap that had dripped across the floor. I got the floor cleaner out and started polishing the dining room floor – something only done when it becomes obviously necessary. Then I swept and cleaned the kitchen floor. My husband ripped up old boxes and put the packed boxes back into the garage. He saved Mary from accidentally being thrown away (!).

Finally, exhausted, we lay on the couch and watched some television. Looking around me, the cleanliness and absence of clutter calmed my spirits. I peeked in on my son, who had conked out before changing into his pajamas.

My husband turned on an infomercial and my ears perked up as a medical author discussed natural remedies for some ailments some of my relatives suffer from. “Should we order it?” I asked jokingly. Surprisingly, my husband answered in all serious, “Go ahead!”

We had never ordered anything over the telephone before, and I was so pleased at having this gracious permission offered, that I picked up the telephone. The customer representative soon started in on a series of related offers. Was I interested in a weight loss book in the series? A smoking cessation book? Free trials for three magazines? A shopping savings club? No thank you, no thank you, went my “broken record”.

My husband was nearly in stitches listening to my end of the conversation. Finally, “we have made arrangements for you and your family to spend six days and seven nights in sunny Florida,” and I broke into peals of laughter. “No thank you, we just got back!” I answered, “Have a nice night!”

Monday morning, my son came to me in silent tears. I asked my husband to help me discover the cause. He looked into our son’s room and informed me he had thrown up. So at 6:00 AM I started running a bath for him, stripping the bed, and disinfecting.

“Mommy, my head hurts,” said my nine-year-old. She was running a fever of 102 degrees.

“I guess you’re the only one of us going to school today,” I told my eldest.

Once I heard the baby wake up, I started to steam clean the rug in my son’s room. When I was done, I went in to get her. She had fallen back asleep – and stayed that way until after noon! I went downstairs and joined the sick children, who lay on the couch watching television. I caught up on some sleep.

My son had a little table with Cheerios and grape Pedialyte. Of course, he knocked it over. The steam cleaner came down the stairs and now my living room floor is really clean.

Concerned about my daughter’s state-mandated English-Language-Arts exam, which was to take place starting Tuesday, I called the school secretary. She let me know that a child must be fever-free for 24 hours before returning to school, and that a makeup period would be provided for her. After all the preparation that had gone into this test, she was going to miss the first day. What else could I do but laugh?

It was unseasonably warm, so we all went outside for a few hours. It was very pleasant. Once the baby was up, she was happy to stretch her legs outdoors.

It definitely could have been worse, so for what it was I had to be thankful.

I turned in at midnight, saying I’d been up since 6:00. Then I corrected myself, remembering my morning nap. “Oh yeah,” I said, laughing aloud, “I’ve really only been up since 11:00!” I kept chuckling until I finally fell asleep.

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”
Proverbs 17:22

Pictured above: Saint Francis of Assissi, whose lightheartedness was contagious with both children and animals.