I Can See the Fruit

Big events like weddings give one the opportunity to mark not simply the celebration of a sacrament, but the passage of time and the lines of love and relationship that extend backwards and forwards and laterally.  Each of the threads in and of itself cannot portray the whole but taken together, they reveal the tapestry of a family, what is important, what is not. 

This past week, I was able to see Aunts and Uncles and cousins and friends.  My heart aches because I could have easily spent the whole week with any one of them and felt as sated by that visit as I felt saturated by the whole of it, of wanting to have whole years of time with all of them.  It was glorious and yet not enough.  I liken it to swimming in the gulf of Mexico. You plunge in and wish somehow you didn't have to come up for air, for the whole feel of that ocean is like Heaven, and earth and air seem substandard by comparison in that moment of immersion, unfortunate necessities of life that require one stop and go and reapply sun screen, eat and even rest.   I wanted to sit with everyone.  I wanted to "go and make our visit" as my brother is apt to say, with each of them.  As my cousin remarked in her toast, "This is what Heaven is like," the endless wedding feast with the perfect bridegroom and we are all both surprised and delighted guests and bride. 

At the rehearsal dinner, there were strands of the past with my father reminding me of my grandmother as he sat at the table and said to me, "I don't know what the hell is going on." several times. The evening had been long and he was tired.  But he got the jokes made in some of the toasts, and his buddy from Notre Dame sat by his side the entire evening, soaking in the moments when Dad was present and the sacred silence when he was not.  The Kellys won my heart 1000 times over for that simple being.

My own grandmother spent the rehearsal dinner at my wedding 22 years ago punctuating every toast made by everyone else with, "Well I'm speechless."  She also pestered me to introduce myself to that nice young man I was sitting next to, as he looked handsome.   I told her she had good taste and I planned to marry him the next day.  You can guess what she said next.

My dad's Alzheimer's didn't stop him from really bonding with my five year old daughter Regina.  She served him tea and told me when I tried to interfere (I forget how), "MOMMMM....we're playing a game." which meant leave.  My uncle gave the same toast to my brother he gave at our rehearsal and there was microbrewery beer and fine wine and barbecue and tiramisu and the fullness of it all  made one long for the celebration to simply go on and on and on.  My other brother gave a toast that brought tears to both my sister's eyes and mine, and Danny as always, made us laugh.  He and his new bride were brimming with joy. This has been a feast they have long waited for, so it was perfect that they chose Tobit and the wedding feast at Cana, the best wine was served last.  They had waited 41/36 years for the best wine.  

My other brother reminded me that my uncle was the one singing Donna Nobis Pachem.  I remember being filled with the sound of that song as he sang. These were great sacred moments.  So was the moment when I was surprised to be asked to dance by both of my brothers.  My heart was caught up, just as it had been 22 years ago when I was so overwhelmed by the wedding that I felt as if I danced in a daze when it was time to dance with my dad.   And there are so many memories, most of them about laughing at jokes, about hearing stories rather than telling them.  Blowing out the red candles on a three layer snowy white coconut cake, I could only answer in response to my daughter's "Did you make a wish," "My wish has already been granted." I'd feasted with my mom and dad on my birthday and had all of my family together, singing happy birthday.  What more could one ask? 

Then as now, it was a experience of being earthen vessels, being filled with water that through the mass, through the all of this, praying and feasting, laughing and remembering and forgetting why we forgot that this family, this allness is so very wonderful.  And in the end, through all of this drinkable joy, we became wine.  Now I firmly believe that in all of life, we are to be like the Eucharist, fundamentally transformed internally into love, into more than we could ever aspire if we remained mere hosts and fermented grapes, though still seeming the same to the visible eye.  I also know, being fallen, we often chose to remain mere bread and wine and fail to recognize how much more we could be if we let love define us in all things.

These fat times are important as we return to the ordinariness and fasting involved in bills and diets and laundry and chores, book reports and billable hours, job searches, daily medications, normal schedules and bedtimes.  The leaner times of life are bearable because we know they are not the all of it, even if in the midst of those lean times, we forget about the moreness of heaven and ordinary time, the moreness of the silent sitting with my dad, and the moreness of sheer insanely silly joy as 100 wedding guests participated in a surprise flash mob orchestrated by Danny to toast Anna.  This was a fierce feast of love which, if it did not have the substance of love, the mass, the genuine community and love that these two people both engender in others (It is a known gift of my brother's, to create deeper relationships than people expect that they would want), would be as if a diet of tiramisu, sweet and fattening and caffinated but without substance. 

But the realness of the struggles that were both known and unknown in the pews, of all the crosses thus far endured, and all those yet to be carried, the long wait, the long loneliness that I know my brother ached from, praying and hoping for the vocation of husband and someday, he hopes, father, of the mass, of the true nature of the sacrament, anchored the feast and made it more.  Staying at my aunt's house and seeing her grown up children, loving every snatched conversation, seeing that one day, my home would be as hers, filled with pictures of family that now were starting their own, I could see the fruit yet to come.  Being at the mass and seeing all the family and friends past and thinking of those not there because they were now enjoying the real wedding feast, I could see the fruit of the table at which we all hope to dine, the gifts of everyone that came in their faces that mirrored the joy of the bride and groom.  

To Danny and Anna, God bless you and keep  you.   Prayers.  See you at the next feast.

Back in the Saddle...or at least...out of the car...

We're back. It was fun and awesome and filling and luminous and joyful and loud and fattening and everywhere I looked was a person I hadn't seen in years and for whom my heart ached to spend the whole time just catching up.  It was a perpetual interruption of joy by more joy.  It's hard to explain other than to say I loved every minute.  That being said, my family did miss the comforts of their home. I submit my 18 month old daughter's response. 

When we got home, it was 9 in the evening. Time for bath and bed. This was my final heroic gesture to the toddlers, as I had no gas left in my tank after three days of driving after 5 days of really partying preceded by three days of driving. 

I put her in her crib. She slumped into the sleeping position immediately. An hour later when I was crawling into bed, she woke up.  She ran around the crib four or five times. "MOM!" she shouted.
Her dad and I looked over.  "WOW! WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW!"  She ran around the crib again, every once in a while saying the "WOW! WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW!"

"I think she's glad to be home." I quipped.  She nodded her head. 

I have a 1000 stories from the trip...but they'll have to wait. I have 11 days of mail to catch up. 

How to Pack 12 for a Wedding

Two weeks out:

Think about thinking about it. Promptly get headache.  Eat chocolate. Drink diet coke. Start to make a list. Lapse into sugar coma only to wake up and need to fix snack for kids who have congregated around your seemingly comatose body to watch a DVD on the tv in your room.

Ten days out:

Have car designated for trip break down.  Take to shop.  Get new battery, tires, brakes and oil change, the works.  Feel oddly smug about getting the car in shape without having intended to do any of it prior to the emergency.  Celebrate by ordering pizza.

One week out:  Panic.  Washing machine has died. Collect all laundry to take to the Washateria, order new machine, swear you will use time without ability to wash to make a list of what you will pack.

Three days out: Still panicking.  Google trip.  Begin thinking about seating arrangements.  Make emergency run for earbuds and batteries to keep teenagers sedated the entire time.  To avoid hyperventilating, seriously begin considering just packing the wedding clothes and pajamas and tooth brushes and shopping at Walmart as we go. 

Two days out: Get car washed so it will be clean when it gets trashed en route.   Have one child have a sleepover that evolves into a swimming party and doesn't end until 2 in the afternoon. Have another daughter decide today she will take her learning permit test.  Have the DMV declare they close at 4 when the website and phone tree say 5.  Cope with disappointment and the loss of an hour and a half.  Have paperwork take up three hours such that actual packing gets pushed off until the next day.  To avoid actually packing, blog about it and eat some of your emergency chocolate.

One day left: Irony alert as I get an email from Flylady.com about how today is No More Procrastination day.  (Darn Tootin! But that's because there is no more choice involved).
Take out Dry Erase  Board and put: YOU WILL NEED:  5 Underwear.  5 Pair of Socks.  5 pair of shorts/pants  5 shirts  2 pj's and your wedding clothes.  Then have each child stack their things.  Discover two don't have necessary wedding shoes despite having been taken out twice to get things for said event.  Decide to get en route at Walmart if necessary.  Eat the rest of your emergency chocolate.

Get list from husband of additional things we will need...cooler....from teens....chargers for phones...ipad, computer...and have to issue ruling on number of stuffed animals, books and toys one may bring along. Resolve to limit to one. Cope with puppy dog eyes begging from moppet 5 year old and cohort six year old who then get around the restriction of one per by declaring that this one is their younger sister's,(She's 16 months), the other one's Paul's (3), and the last two are mine and their dad's.

At 11 in the evening, when 12 laundry baskets are assembled and you are packing by day into backpacks, have a freak land hurricane hit such that you are plunged into darkness. Wonder why there is no back up emergency chocolate for an actual emergency.

4:00 AM day to launch:  Get up, pack by holding flashlight in between teeth and hope when all is said and done, everyone at least has enough underwear to make it to the next washing machine.

Danny and Anna's Wedding.  12 days, 2,897 miles, 12 people, 1 van, and no Emergency chocolate.