19-April-2007


As I sat there in the stuffy community room, listening to Latin music wailing, staring at the bizarre pineapple centerpiece, stuck with toothpicks holding sweaty cheddar cheese, olives, grapes, and pepperoni, I thought to myself, oh yes this day was more than I imagined it to be. I looked around and everyone but those directly around me seemed to be in an Augadiente induced haze.

Unlike any other wedding I attended, I did not spend any time beforehand thinking about my gift, what I would wear, or wager a guess as to which clever little details the bride would choose to make the day special and her own.

Instead the week leading up to the wedding was like any other, waking everyday later that I had promised myself the night before, hurriedly getting a shower, feeding the cat, and racing off to work, to struggle to stay just a day or two behind where I told myself I should be. Exhausted after work, I would run errands, and fall into a mind numbing state as I sat on my couch tuning into a few of the shows that had been piling up on my DVR.

All the while in the back of my mind, I knew my brother was getting married on Saturday; I just didn’t have any energy for it. I grew exhausted thinking about it, so I would just put it out of my mind until Friday afternoon, when a colleague inevitably asked “What are you doing this weekend,” and I mumbled to myself, “going to my brother’s wedding.” It took her a couple seconds to comprehend, and she exclaimed “YOU ARE,” “yes” again in a half mumble, it is real; I am going to my brother’s wedding whatever that entails.

What it entailed is my father coming to town. Born in Kearney, New Jersey, he considers himself a native Texan, been there for thirty years, and clearly out of his element anywhere else. I told myself so many times before Saturday, even when he said to me on the phone during the week, “I don’t know where I am staying Saturday night”, what I said, no proclaimed to myself, was “HE IS NOT GOING TO STAY WITH ME.” I don’t dislike him but our differences in everything else but the same aged female friends leave him with only one topic to talk about endlessly. Why Texas is so much better in every way you didn’t know you could imagine.

What I didn’t imagine was arriving to the church on Saturday afternoon to find the doors locked because both the bride and the groom were late to their own wedding. I stood outside on the cool spring Saturday, chilly and annoyed. I picked up the phone and called my brother to hear him say “um yeah we are running REALLY late, I already talked to the priest, he is going to change the service from a full mass just to reading us our rights.” I am in Lambertville I will be there in a little while.

A little while was forty five minutes later, with the arrival of a bride and a groom the wedding was on, and we raced to find our seats as the bride began to walk down the aisle, straps dangling off her shoulders, to the bridal march. I sat there through the beginning of the ceremony not really listening and thinking, who shows up late to their own wedding, this is a crazy debacle, should he even be doing this, when I realized, this was the woman and the life that my brother had chosen. I sat there and looked at him as he looked into his brides eyes, as they child they shared sat on his grandfather’s lap looking at what was unfolding and not understanding that this as imperfect as it seemed it was promise of an official family that I know my brother had longed for since our own had divided. I watched as he nervously stated his vows, and I cried, happy tears.