A WEDDING

                                                            

So today is my Grandsons wedding. Today is the day when his life changes and he now becomes responsible for another person. The day when #1 is not he anymore but she, and he, and today he tells her this in front of his family and friends and they become one. It’s also the day when they both leave their parents and start this wonderful journey through life together, in this institution that we call marriage.

I remember back to the day when my son, his father, took that step and from that relationship with his mom, came him and his siblings. I remember even farther back when I took his grandmother for my bride and it pains my heart today that she didn’t live to see this but it also makes me proud that she played a big part in this day. That in Mike’s genes lays snippets of her genetic makeup and I hope and pray that some of her goodness that we all learned to love and cherish will carry on.

When you think about it, this is probably the most serious commitment he will ever make in his life, when he joins with her and asks to share their lives in harmony. To someday, maybe, make more branches on the family tree by bringing new life into this world. A life that will be an extension of both of them. That day you not only become a parent but a teacher, through your good example. For both of them their own parents long ago cast the die and they only need to keep it going.

I think for a grandfather a day like this is bittersweet. You think back to the night he was born and from that day on, life came at you in fast motion. Each time you saw him he was an inch taller and five pounds heavier. His parents lived downstairs from us, while his dad built their new home and you could hear him laugh and cry through the floors and there was always that bubble of pride when you realized “That’s my namesake, my grandson I hear.” You remember the days of swimming and fishing and hunting together and going to his football games and Christmas’s and then all to fast-- graduation and those first steps out into the world and now this today.

I have a picture of him, along with all of my grandchildren displayed on the wall right over my head where I write. I call it my wall of pride. Each year his mom would give us a new picture and each year we would tuck the old one behind it and today I took the frame down and followed his life backwards from adulthood to his baby picture and then I shed a few tears because I was so thankful for the life God gave both of us and that we were able to take this journey together. That through all the years he was kept safe and now he has found someone to love, who loves him back and I hope that someday he will be where I am now-- and know just what I am talking about. I know that all over this world, this scene plays out over and over again and for many of you readers you are nodding your heads and saying, “I know just how you feel. I have been there and done that.”

 It’s a beautiful day here at the lake today. The sun is shining and July has never been lovelier. Lilly’s are blooming in the garden and the hostas are sending up their blooms too. The breeze that blows across the lake today, for me, is the winds of change. But for today they are all just garnish on the over-all picture, for this day belongs to Mike and Page, and now I have to leave. I have a wedding to attend.