About a year ago I wrote about my friend’s daughter getting married and how they honored me by asking me to sing at the wedding.  The wedding was Saturday and what a wedding it was.  Her father, Joe, was just as emotional as I thought he would be – in our family we call that type of person a “sentimental slob” and we can say that because we all are.  He could barely keep it together walking down the aisle and was dabbing his eyes throughout the ceremony. The bride was gorgeous, the mother of the bride, Thais, displayed where the bride got that beauty, a good time was had by all.  The groom and his family clearly love our Missy.  A classic wedding that went off without a hitch.

What I’d like to write about was something that I did not expect.  I guess I should have, but didn’t think about it too much in my efforts to exercise my voice, practice the song, and compose a tribute to “Nanny” – the bride’s great grandmother who raised the mother of the bride and her five siblings when their mother died tragically in childbirth.  For whom did I think I was writing that tribute?   Turns out it was Thais’ brothers: George, Tom, and Gerard, and her sisters: Allison and Suzanne.  In all the years that have gone by since we were newlyweds and they were still single and visiting California, I had honestly forgotten all those good times – camping, partying, laughing.  Now here they all were, gray haired, some with little children, some with tales of their twenty-somethings, some of their children attending the wedding.  We all hugged and I realized that I did have a family here, at least in the early years.  When Thais’ family started having families of their own, the visits became less frequent.  Now the stories of our good times back in the day came flying out, as well as reconnecting with quick rundowns of raising kids and surviving to tell about it.

I made it through the song without crying, but  – mission accomplished – the whole rest of the congregation was in tears, remembering Nanny and hearing a lovely arrangement of The Irish Blessing sung by yours truly.  It never occurred to me that it was not just Missy and Ryan I would be singing to, but a whole group of people, including Nanny’s 82 year old son and Thais’ childhood friends who had also been “raised” by Nanny. They would all feel her presence in that church.  I know now that my idea to pay tribute to her and to sing a song she would love was not my idea at all, I was merely a conduit for yet another inexplicable spiritual message from beyond.

And that was not all, oh no, that was not all.  In waltzed people we hung out with when the kids were little, before some of the people moved, before the busy time of chasing children to ball practice and piano lessons, before running church carnivals and picking up prom tuxes caused us to lose touch.   They too had aged, and yet…  Here was a string of memories that spanned 25 years, that spilled onto the dance floor last night.  Here were couples who, like Al and I, were once young and newlywed and new parents, slow dancing, gazing into each other’s eyes.  You could tell we were all wondering the same thing – how did we get here?  Did we feel the same way as this starry eyed couple in the middle of the dance floor?  As Joe and Thais made their way down the staircase to be introduced at the dinner, I shed not the first tears of the day.  I have seen that couple through many marriage trials and tribulations.  They, who were fresh off their honeymoon as Al and I were when we moved to California and met within weeks, have seen us through just as many.  And now here we were, watching the little baby girl get married, all together, surrounded by beloved friends and family.

When Al’s mother passed away, we inherited a cross stitch that hangs in my entryway.  It says “The chain of friendship, stretching far, links days that were with days that are.”  I have always loved that and now it has even more meaning to me.

Congratulations Missy and Ryan!