In the past few months we have planned, bought dresses, ordered flowers,
sent invitations and received responses, counted meals and developed
seating charts. The time has flown by, just as the time did in raising
up our little girl. But this is how the days were leading up to and
including her wedding day.
The night we went to Lucien’s Manor to review the
last minute details, we snuck into the room that the reception would be
held in. We counted the tables and tried to imagine what the set up
would be like at her reception. We practiced walking down the stairs as
we would when we were announced. And her Dad led her onto the dance
floor where they practiced for the song that they would dance to. Later,
at home, they practiced again in our foyer. My heart melted.
Just days away, she went outside to play with Sam.
As I walked by the window, I caught a glimpse of someone racing up our
driveway on a bicycle. As I looked closer, I saw a little girl with
skinned up knees peddling as fast as can be with pigtails flying in the
breeze. I looked again, and it was Laurie, all grown up.
The night before the wedding, after the rehearsal
and dinner were over, her bridal party and I stayed at a hotel. Her
bridesmaids were in one room, and Laurie and I shared the other. Just
the two of us.
We talked about a lot of things, shared past
memories and future dreams and at some point, her nervous energy gave
way to sleep. It had been a very long time since I had stayed awake just
to watch her sleep. But I did that night.
Her wedding day dawned and we were off to hair and
makeup appointments. How do you make someone so perfectly beautiful look
even more beautiful?
The chaos in my house later, as seven females
attempted to dress at the same time was the only hectic part of the day.
But soon we gathered, with nervous smiles for the photographer.
And all too soon, I was seated in the church pew.
When the bridal march began, we stood and as I looked to the back of the
church, I first noticed my husband, the man that I had walked back down
the same aisle with many years ago. He is a little grayer, but when I
looked at him, I still saw the man that I had married.
And then I saw the bride standing beside him. And
in the time it took for them to walk up the aisle, I saw her in many
ways...as the stranger that they first placed in my arms, as the toddler
dressed for Easter, as the soccer player with bruised knees, as the
young woman in the prom photographs, in a high school cap and gown and
at her college graduation, the woman who leaped from her chair and into
Kyle’s arms the night that he proposed, and finally, I saw the woman
dressed as a bride as they passed me and stopped at the altar.
Her father kissed her, placed her hand in Kyle’s,
and just like that, he gave her away. And I asked myself how you give
away a part of your heart.
And
just a little while later, as she kissed her husband, I was reminded of
closing the page on the story books that I had read over and over to her
when she was small.
The day continued with more photos, laughter and
hugs, toasts, music, dancing and more food than you can imagine. I
wanted to burst when she danced with her dad. But as emotional as that
moment was, it wasn’t nearly as sentimental as when the two of them had
danced in our foyer just days before.
All too soon it was over and we were left to say
goodbye. But I realized that we weren’t saying goodbye to her, but
rather, saying goodbye to the child that we had once known.
And at some point on the drive home, from somewhere
far away, I heard a small child’s voice whisper as the last page of a
storybook closed, “And they lived happily ever after.”
Yes, my child, they did.
