The Happy
My niece’s wedding occurred this weekend. It was an incredible series of events: lunches, dinners, and the most amazing wedding I have ever attended. It looked like a magazine shoot, sounded like a concert, and tasted like you imagine the food on a TV show would taste. I had a blast. At every turn, my sister-in-law’s family (who are local to the area) stepped up to make everyone feel welcome, included and part of the festivities.
My nephews supported their sister in the way that only siblings can. Several times over the course of three days, I would look around to find them hugging their sister or patting her head, in some way acknowledging a deep connection that healthy families are blessed to have. They teased when warranted, but, when the chips were down, you could see how deeply they love their sister and how much they approve of her choice in husband.
My niece was her usual sweet, glowing, charming self, full of humor and humanity, and I had the overwhelming sense that this marriage will be much more than the sum of its parts. They are kids, both of them, really. A huge swath of the human experience remains ahead of them. And yet, I have absolute faith in this match. They care so deeply for one another and have a support system that could hold back the sea, if that was what was wanted. She has married a man so deeply in love with her, I can imagine him looking at her 50 years from now with the same sense of wonder that he does today. He appears as a man who can’t believe how lucky he is to have landed her. What more could parents ask of the man who marries their only daughter? My brother and his wife see this and seemed to approach the wedding with the requisite sadness at the passing of time, but without the apprehension that I know some parents feel at the union itself.
The Hard
The struggle for me, and I suspect I was not alone, was that, in the midst of all of this joy, I felt my mother’s absence as acutely as I have since she died. In every detail of the parties, in the toasts that were made and in the wedding program, my mother was acknowledged and celebrated. Still, I found myself connecting more with the groom’s family, whom I know not at all, than my sister-in-law’s whom I have known for 25 years.
You see, the groom’s family is marked by its losses. Both sets of grandparents and an uncle are gone, and as I stared across the aisle at the nearly empty front row for the groom, my eye was drawn to the empty chair next to my father. We are no longer intact. A hole has been bored through us, and some of the joy and lightness of life has leaked out through that hole. Nothing, not even a great party celebrating my niece and her groom could outshine what is missing from my life.
I now have a phantom limb. In most of my day-to-day, I can shoo away the occasional stabs of pain that come from nowhere, but when faced with my sister-in-law's happy clan, still orbiting around its matriarch, the aches and itches lingered. I struggled with resentment at their unfettered joy. It’s not that anyone was disrespectful of our loss. On the contrary, they were incredibly kind and understanding of it. And it’s my niece’s time, so one must buck up and be happy for her at this amazing point in her journey. Sloppy grief wallowing is inappropriate at a wedding – in the extreme.
It’s just that my sister-in-law's family hasn’t quite joined the fraternity yet. They still have a family gathering at which there are no empty chairs. They don’t have to imagine what one of their own would think or feel watching her granddaughter dance at the wedding. They could wander about and randomly hug anyone they wanted, while I sat at a table, amidst a full-throated celebration of connection and relationship and found myself trying to recall the tactile experience of hugging my mother.
If all matter converts to energy and energy never disappears completely, then my mother’s molecules still vibrate somewhere. On Saturday night, I hope they were floating around that reception, vibrating with an assist from a very talented, very loud band.
