This weekend we celebrated my daughter’s wedding. It was a perfect weekend, and the celebration was an enormous success that lasted well into the night.
My daughter and her fiancé were eager to be married and begin their life together. So eager that the groom said “I do” before it was time, muttering so only the first row could hear, “I do, I do, I do.” He waited for the officiant to finish so he could repeat his vows.
The bride and groom love each other deeply. Their love radiates. Their faces soften when they see each other.
As I watched them, I realized how special love really is.
First, love is wildly contagious. As their love spilled out into the audience, we fell in love as well. I found myself saying “I love you” to friends and family throughout the night. I felt love for people I had just met.
Love is a feeling that we can conjure. For example, pain is a memory, but we cannot recreate it (otherwise women would have just one child). But I can regenerate the feelings of love as if I am experiencing them all over again. Watching the couple say their vows, I was reminded of how I felt when my late husband and I shared our vows.
Love is easy. When a room fills with love, feelings become easy to express, people are inclusive and easy going.
Love is joy. Watching people having a good time on the dance floor made me experience their happiness.
Love is acceptance and celebrating differences. It didn’t matter if you were on the “bride’s side” or the “groom’s side.”
Love is appreciation. It is beyond acceptance. Love is liking people because of and in spite of their differences.
Love is kindness and sharing.
Love is laughter. My family performed a choreographed dance for the bride and groom. Many of us are not very good dancers, and one of my sisters agreed to wear a disco helmet for the dance. We laughed so hard that we often missed our steps.
Love extends beyond the physical; my aches and pains temporarily subsided.
That night made me think about a time nine years ago when my husband and I were driving to a hospital where doctors would surgically remove a metal scaffolding from his broken leg. Doctors couldn’t understand why his bone wasn’t healing or the source of his excruciating pain. After removing this metal device, they were able to diagnose a rare, advanced, and terminal cancer.
Doctors didn’t know that this would be our last journey together, but somehow, we did. On the long drive to the NYC hospital, I impulsively put in a CD that we hadn’t listened to in decades…it was the music that we fell in love with. He touched my arm and smiled, “I would have picked that, too.”
And instantly we were transported back to the time before life’s annoyances and pressing demands overshadowed love. Squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube, late nights at work, career setbacks, parenting struggles…all of those melted away. We were back in love, for the last time. Every day we talked. He would ask me to remarry…still wanting to care for me after death. I promised him that I would take care of what remained. Even death cannot end love.
And I want to thank the bride and groom for reminding me of all of love’s superpowers, so powerful, it can even transcend death.
Angela Rieck, a Caroline County native, received her PhD in Mathematical Psychology from the University of Maryland and worked as a scientist at Bell Labs, and other high-tech companies in New Jersey before retiring as a corporate executive. Angela and her dogs divide their time between St Michaels and Key West Florida. Her daughter lives and works in New York City.
Bob Moores says
Beautiful sentiments. How true!
Sharon Somers says
Thank you for sharing such wonderful and loving memories! It brings joy to the heart just reading it!