There goes the bride . . . .

Since this year there have seemed to be a whole slew of funerals of people I care about, I thought I would blog about the recent spate of weddings and wedding related celebrations I have attended, as an upside to all the other.  

Our niece was married on Saturday and we attended her temple wedding, her wedding dinner and the reception.  It was a nice day to be with friends and family and to celebrate this new marriage.  We hope for them many happy years ahead.

Besides celebrating the marriage, weddings serve a secondary function and that is to make a married person recall his or her own wedding and how it felt to start out on the road of matrimony, oh so many years ago.  

I cannot attend a wedding in the east sealing room of the temple, where my own wedding was held, and not recall that as soon as my fiancé said "yes" to marrying me, I had to fight the almost overwhelming urge to vault the alter that was between us, despite my big-skirted wedding dress and veil, and just give him a big hug. I did restrain myself but I still remember the effort it took to just stay put.  

I always think of how, as nice as advice from the sealer may be, likely no one will remember what he says.  I certainly do not remember anything our sealer said but that may also be because somewhere along the line I just quit listening to him, assuming at some point in the dialog that it was all for my husband's benefit!  Ha!

At the wedding dinner, the father of our niece said, "Marriage is equal parts love and commitment."  I thought that was quite profound, actually, because, what love does not get you through, commitment can, although I am not sure if it is always in equal parts in every instance. And sometimes one-sided love and commitment is not enough to make up for a lack of the same in the other party to a marriage.  However, when there is love AND commitment on both sides, those traits really can keep you from leaving that matrimonial road.

At weddings and wedding receptions, I always ponder on all a bride and groom "do not know that they do not know" about what is ahead for them on their matrimonial road.  All of us go into marriage with certain uncontrollably erroneous ideas of what we expect marriage to be, what we expect our spouse to be, and what we expect our future to be. I think it is safe to say that no matter what we DO think as we start out, we are wrong.  Period.  This same idea holds true for other life-altering undertakings such as parenthood or missions (to name a few).

This last weekend, we also celebrated the 60th wedding anniversary of my in-laws.  For my in-laws' 50th, I  put together a dinner at Pine Valley recreation area for them.  On Father's Day this year, my father-in-law asked me to put something similar together for their 60th.  So I did, and I had a lot of help from family members.  We met at the Pine Valley recreation area again and had a dutch oven dinner along with visiting and photographs.  My in-laws, and all their children and grandchildren and their spouses were able to come, except two nephews-in-law--a great turn out.

This picture was taken a few years into their marriage and I used it on the invitation to the party.  I think it is a great photograph, capturing their youth, the happiness of the outing, and the look of that decade.

I told my in-laws that reaching the sixty-year mark is not something that very many people can claim.  For example, by the time my husband and I reach that milestone, B will be 99 and I will be 91.  Possible, I guess, but not probable.  

This 60th anniversary party was juxtaposed with my niece's wedding the following day.  Additionally, B and I are approaching our twenty-year mark.  All of us at different places along that marital road and each couple probably has different perceptions about that marital road.

As an aside, I have been in my husband's family for nearly twenty years, and for all those years I have thought my mother-in-law's favorite color was red. In fact, I have always given her things that were red for birthdays, Mother's Days and Christmases, when color was a factor.  Then, just a couple of days before the 60th anniversary party, I asked  my mother-in-law what her favorite color was, fully expecting the answer to be red.  She said, "Any color is my favorite color as long as it is blue."  Well, of all the things I didn't know I didn't know . . . .

The week before this wedding-related double header, I attended the reception for a friend's daughter.  As that newlywed couple left the reception and got into their decorated car, up in the sky over their heads was a perfect rainbow.  I could not resist taking a picture, because it was so symbolic to me.

This is how most couples start out on their marital road, with a, beautifully large, optimistically promising rainbow overhead.  The new couples move off along that marital road looking for that promised pot of gold.  Not all will find it.  But I think some do.

End of Summer; Back to School

This picture serves a triple purpose.  First, L got her braces off last week.  Here is her 100 mega watt smile!  She is thrilled to be rid of the braces!

Second, today was the last swim meet of the summer.  Today, it was so overcast and, during the race just preceding this picture, rainy.  L said that during that particular race, when she came up for air, she got a mouthful of rain every time.  (After this event, they had a 30-minute break while they waited for the rainy weather to pass.)

This brings me to the third purpose--how grown up my daughter is getting as it relates to how old I am getting.  This week, she and I went to the high school to get a locker for her.  You know what?  There is nothing about that high school (except its name, three classrooms and a gym) that in anyway resembles the high school I attended several decades ago.

(As an aside, I have always wondered whether the word "several" means two or three or more!?! In this case, it is more than two and less than four and a little added in for good measure.)

The other day, while taking L to swim practice, I burst into singing the old high school song.  I think I must have been warming up for our trip to get the locker later that day!  She said, "What's that you're singing?"  In all fairness, the school song has been changed since I was in high school and it had been changed before I went to high school so depending on when you went to school there, you would sing a different song.  Literally.

The high school today has more students enrolled than the high school did "in my day."  There were about five hundred students and my high school had grades 7-12.  This has grades 10-12, and has probably about 1000 students.  Most of the students in my class (aside from the kids from "up the river") had gone K through 12 together and we had eaten in the same lunch room for all twelve years of school.  This high school has students who (assuming they have attended school here "forever") have come from four different elementary schools, one intermediate school and one middle school.  There were kids everywhere on the day we went to get the locker and it was only sophomore registration that day.

This is not to say that there are not good things at the school, improvements over the old version of the high school--such as getting a nicer school.  As I understand it, some of the school is slated for demolition and a new school is going to be built.  The entire school that is in use right now is newer, nicer and in better condition than the school of the same name that I attended.  The class offerings have more variety.  There are more teachers that teach any given subject.  There is a girls' athletics program now.  It is too bad there was no girls' athletics program when I was in school, not for me but for other girls who would have loved that.  The girls do not have to wear dresses or pants suits to school. (L did not even know what a pants suit was!)  The kids actually have to do homework (which I think is an improvement, up to a point).  There is more diversity--more "room" for people to fit in.  There are so many more friends to make and so many different activities available.

The school calendar that was sent out recently was for two months and had only athletics on it.  Maybe the school is so big that there can be no comprehensive calendar of events even for one month.  I have never seen one in the two years my older son has already attended that school and I cannot even find one online.  Our school secretary at the old high school would have known each student, his/her genealogy, address, and definitely what was going on day to day--off the top of her head.  Now, there are so many athletic teams, so many clubs, so many THINGS these kids have the opportunity to do, that probably no one person at the high school really knows what is going on and so consequently, neither do I.

There is not one teacher who is still there from my time at the high school and I am older than the principal.  Egad!  (I would not know that except that he told me his age as he and I were chatting.)  Maybe if I would have had a child very close to the time of my high school graduation, and not spent more than a dozen years post high school in spinsterhood, I might have sent that child through a school that I could somewhat recognize.  Things have changed enough since I was there so that I will just have to leave it to the kids to navigate the school the best they can since I am definitely a stranger there in a strange land.  They will do fine.  I will be the one who will continue to be lost there!  Like I always tell my kids, "It's not yo mama's high school!"

Weightier Matters

Here are my pre-post disclaimers.  First,  my computer is not completely back to normal.  I do not have my usual scanning/photo software reinstalled on this computer and it has delayed any posting but I am going ahead without pictures.  2. My camera battery is dead.  I carry my camera around everywhere and I always seem to forget to pull it out and use it.  However, this week, I've pulled it out twice only to find (and re-find) that I had a dead battery.  Phooey!

Another person from the LV Ward of my youth passed away last week (Roxie BB) and her funeral was this week.  We have seen too many of the ward members from my youth pass away this past year.  Like I've said before, those ward members from the ward of my youth are in some category all their own, not exactly family, although I think of them as almost family and it gives meaning to the worn out phrase "ward family."  I feel so bad to see those who were the adults of my youth passing away and I feel all the poorer for it.

I wanted to scan the picture from the program for Roxie's funeral but (see disclaimer) I could not. I do not remember a time when I did not know her.  Her children were roughly the ages of my siblings and me.  She was my 4-H teacher (along with JHI) when I was in the 4-H group called "The Soupy Six"--a cooking class.  She would have been present at all the ward activities of my youth when parents attended, since her daughter was nearly my age.  I think I may have even been Roxie's visiting teacher for a very short time.  The funeral was a nice tribute to her.  She was always pleasant, lady-like, kind and she had a ready smile.  She and her husband were real sweethearts and I feel very sad for her husband with her passing.

During the funeral, Roxie's daughter Colette BL said that she could remember an activity for MIA when our  mothers were invited.  At some point, the mothers were to whisper in their daughters' ears what the mothers wanted for their daughters' futures.  CBL said her mother whispered, "I want you to graduate from high school."  As I heard that, I thought that my mother was surely present at the activity but whatever Mom whispered in my ear went in one ear and out the other.  I have no recollection of it.  I tried to think of something that my mother could possibly have whispered--something Edna-like.  After some thought, I decided she would likely have said, "Be a good girl."  That was always what she said to me when I was going anywhere and it certainly could have broad application to my future.

Today was Aunt Genevieve's funeral.  I have been spoiled that despite my late arrival in the lives of my parents (and consequently my extended family) my aunts and uncles, at least on my father's side, have lived to ripe old ages, so much so that I have taken their longevity somewhat for granted.  It is hard to believe that my parents and all my aunts and uncles on either side of my family (18 on Dad's side and 13 on Mom's) are nearly all gone.  There are just three left now, two on Dad's side and one on Mom's.  And such talented people they have all been!

All of Aunt Genevieve's children spoke at the funeral and as the last one finished speaking, the dear, elderly lady sitting next to me said quietly but with real feeling and mainly to herself, "My! What a wonderful family!"  That caused me to reflect on, in deed, what good people Aunt Genevieve's "kids" are and what a tribute that, in itself, is to her.  I would hope to have the same heart-felt whispered exclamation made at my own funeral.

While I have known Aunt Genevieve all my life (and BTW she was also an adult in the ward of my youth so a double loss for me), it has been in the last twenty or so years that our relationship has become even closer--been kicked up a notch, to use Emeril's phrase.  I am thankful for Aunt Genevieve's and my association through the years and I will miss her greatly.  Even driving by her house makes me miss her again and again.  If I focus on the ways that her passing is a good thing for Aunt Genevieve, then I do not feel as bad and I do feel comforted.  If I focus on my loss, then I really feel bereft.

There were a lot of poems shared at Aunt Genevieve's funeral.  I had not known that she loved poetry so much and I am sorry I did not know that.  As I sat there in Aunt Genevieve's funeral, I thought of a poem I had read over a decade ago that means a lot to me and that I always think of at the passing of loved ones. I want to share it here.

When Time of Parting Comes

By John M. Freckleton, “When Time of Parting Comes,” Ensign, Aug. 1997, 17

Does a person newly dead
Indulge in tears
When pausing for a moment
Just beyond the veil,
Beholding loved ones overcome by grief,
Retreat from what was once a bed of pain,
And murmur sad good-byes?
And does the newly dead
Rejoice that mortal agony is over,
Mingling tears of thankfulness
With sorrow for the parting from the loved ones:
Mother for her little children,
Father for beloved wife and family,
Child for loss of earthly home …
Can the spirit thus released
From all the heaviness of earth
Forget at once the happiness
That came from friends
And all the beauty earth life
Sometimes held …
And leave with no regrets
Or backward glance?
Must the leaving differ greatly
From those poignant moments
When we say good-bye
To take our leave at any time
And be without the company of those we love
For many days of longing loneliness
Or for an interlude of years?

I can imagine Aunt Genevieve and Roxie, as well as my mother, pausing just across the veil and looking back at the loved ones whom, for now, they are leaving behind, but then meeting all the other loved ones who are already beyond the veil.  At the close of Aunt Genevieve's funeral, our bishop mentioned that a day to God is 1000 years to us and that in God's years, the time since Uncle Horatio [as well as my father] passed away has been something like 20 minutes, and I thought to myself, "See there! I will see all of these people 'soon'  so I wasn't lying when I said to Mom, "I'll see you soon--well, not for fifty years but 'soon'!"  :o)