Wedding, funeral bring overflow of emotions
A recent Saturday found me at two churches for two contrasting events – a wedding and a funeral. By the end of the day, I felt like I’d spent too much time in the wave pool at Boulder Beach. I’d been buoyed by waves of joy one moment, suffocated in the undercurrent of grief the next.
The afternoon funeral was for a 27-year-old man. Brian was both a talented athlete and an avid reader. He was a loving son, a loyal friend, a cherished brother and an adored uncle. But he also was deeply troubled and, at times, lost. He’d been plagued by depression for years. And early one morning, his mother found him, dead in his room, in the home he had shared with his parents.
His loss rocked our North Side community and devastated his family. His mother and grandmother had never stopped hoping, never stopped believing that Brian would be restored to the exuberant, charming boy they’d watched grow up. But suddenly, without warning, he was gone.
The church was filled with somber, dark-clad guests. Tears fell freely. Brian’s family has the comfort of their faith to help them through their loss and the hope of a heavenly reunion, but their pain is still a raw ache. No one and nothing will be able to fill the gap that Brian left behind.
After the service, my husband and I headed home. We exchanged our funeral black for wedding finery. Emotionally, I couldn’t quite make the leap.
We drove in subdued silence through the tree-lined campus to the chapel at Mukogawa Fort Wright. We eagerly had anticipated this wedding of a friend in his 40s who long had shied away from marriage, but the sadness of the afternoon lingered.
Happy guests sloshed through the damp parking lot and entered the elegantly decorated sanctuary. A cellist played soft music as the crowd assembled. Glowing white votives shimmered, and the guests chatted and laughed quietly while listening for the first strains of the bridal march.
And when at last I caught a glimpse of the white-gowned bride and her radiant smile, misty behind her veil, a spark of joy flickered, then ignited.
The ceremony was perfect. Lots of laughter and a few poignant moments. The pastor told the assembled guests how it took a car accident to bring a confirmed bachelor to his senses. How after he had rolled his truck on an icy patch of road, the groom was hanging upside down, suspended by his seat belt. And the only name on his lips was that of his true love, Vicki.
Sometimes, life’s like that. It takes a hard knock on the head to wake us up – to force us to appreciate what we have.
Late that night after the reception, the toasts and the dancing, I wandered through our home, unable to rest. I watched my husband sleep for a while. Our newlywed days are long behind us. And sometimes it’s easy to take for granted simple joys like falling asleep and waking up together.
And then I slipped into my sons’ rooms. I listened to one son mumble and another snore. I shushed my light-sleeper, whose head had popped up the minute I had opened his door – just like it had done when he was an infant and I tried to peek at him while he slept.
I crouched at the foot of my 7-year-old’s bunk bed and tucked his blankie around him.
And tears caught up with me again. Mothers should never have to bury sons. The shining promise of every wedding should gleam even brighter 20 years down the road.
But life doesn’t always work out that way. And sometimes it takes a wedding and a funeral to make us realize how fleeting our blessings can be – and how much we need to cherish what we have while we can.