“Keep your eyes wide open before
marriage, half shut afterwards.”
- Benjamin Franklin
We stood, waiting our
turn… a bit anxious. It was a moment for
which she had waited…not just any moment…at this time in her life; it was ‘the’
moment.
The others had slipped into place and begun the
process. That complete, there was a
short film, following which we would do our part…better said I would play a
supporting role in the unfolding events.
Another
waiting…another time…
The first time I actually knew she was alive was a ‘kick’ inside
her mother’s tummy. An active child in
the womb…prescient of her life on planet earth…Nancy let me feel her
moving. That developing creature
protected by skin and bone and a mother’s love was taking shape.
The second time, and not so distant from the first, was
listening to her heartbeat for the first time.
Movement is one thing, a beating heart…well that is something
different…something prehistoric…something that defies expression, for it
suggests life, sustained life…life that ‘is,’ or at the very least ‘becoming’
self-sustaining. It is the very rhythm into
which the breath of life is breathed…more than just a biologic process, for
injected into the unrelenting division of cells, formation of organs and
sensory systems, the mystery of consciousness “…becomes…”
To those for whom life is nothing more than an unconscious
organic evolution of the universe, I have a sense of sorrow. Not a sorrow of superior insight, for God
knows, I find mine frustratingly limited.
Rather for the inability to accept there are some things (maybe most
things) for which we have so few answers…a mindset I find as overwhelmingly limiting
as religious dogma that does not accept so many things that are
knowable. In fact for me, there is
comfort in the ‘what’s next,’ the ‘mystery of human touches’ that edify and
inform my life.
One need only fully embrace the emergence of that beating
heart and the ‘non-organic’ budding intellect to appreciate consciousness is
more than a spike on the evolutionary x-axis of the universe.
It was time. The film ended, she took my arm…we caught
each other’s eye and with a familiar knowing look – took the first steps…
A different birth…
While I cannot speak to the specifics, for I am certain it
is as unique to each person as the myriad of distinctive faces and curiosities
that we as human beings have, they found each other. A conception of coincident thought occurred… something
prehistoric…something that defies expression, for it suggests love, sustained
love…love that ‘is,’ or at the very least ‘becoming’ self-sustaining. It is the very rhythm into which the breath
of a relationship is breathed…more than just a biologic process, for injected
into the unrelenting division of feelings and affection, there form shared
experiences and sensory feelings, the mystery of love “…becomes…”
He was waiting for
us. While it wasn’t as if they didn’t
know one another…it wasn’t as if those who were their family and friends were
surprised by the moment…he was waiting, and at least to me, his beating
heart was palpable.
The event…
Saturday afternoon, May 31st at 4:50PM, I had the
honor of walking my niece Mariah Dreisinger down the isle and giving her hand in
marriage to Dan Robertson. I suppose for
some with this privilege, things happen so quickly that everything is a blank,
but for me in those brief 40 to 50 feet, so many images of shared family
experience flashed through my mind…the giggle of a ticklish child…the twinkle
in her eye planted by the most diligent and loving of mothers…the dedication
and unrelenting drive to finish and excel in school and athletics. In those brief steps, the videotape in my
mind ran at lightening speed, and I was able to engage every bit of it in
Technicolor.
She placed her small bouquet of flowers in the empty chair
where her mother would have sat and we both kissed our hands and touched them
in rememberance of the woman who had invested so much…
With that, I kissed her cheek, hugged Dan and took my
seat…the privilege and honor of ‘giving away the bride’ complete.
This morning, they awoke fulfilling the age-old words, “Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh.”
While no one at that ceremony could have been more proud
than I, there was another…absent in form – not so in spirit…our beloved Nancy, whose
presence through her daughter was palpable in my beating heart…
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