JACOB'S WEDDING

2002
A year or so ago, Jacob brought home a beautiful Hispanic girl for Christmas dinner. In February she was still sleeping on the couch and I suggested someone move some beds around on the second floor so she’d have a place to sleep. In August I told Jacob that someone needed to take her off on their taxes and if he didn’t marry her, I was going to adopt her. I explained that if I adopted her she’d be his step sister and he couldn’t marry her after that. He told us to meet him at the justice of the peace. Michael and I jumped over a stick at the court house and our marriage stuck so it made sense to Jacob to do the same thing.

There is nothing like getting ready for your child to be married. I think a huge and expensive wedding would come with its own demons and be such a relief to have over that the actual emotional event would be lost in the chaos. It's like labor...you can talk about it, breath deep and read books, but you can't really prepare for it. My goal was to keep from killing or maiming either of them. If I could accomplish that, I knew I had the rest of it made.

Thoughts from the mother of the groom on the day of the wedding….

Jacob and Alistair are getting married today. It's a good match and I'm happy for them. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. It sure didn't seem very long ago that he was a baby. It snowed the week he was born and Michael got to miss work and be home with me. I love those first days when the baby looks at me like I'm perfect. I had the curtains open and the snow was so pretty. I was in the throws of tremendous healing...the kind that only God can do. My last pregnancy ended traumatically with a dead baby in the back seat of a car and the grief of not having my three-year daughter with me took my breath away.

Then there was this perfect little creature and a husband who loved me and God who promised to restore everything the canker worm had stolen. My deepest heart-prayer that day, as with all my children, was for God to help me not mess it up too badly. I asked God to do in me what He had to do to make me a good mother. I asked the Lord to help me raise Jacob to be a good son. In one of those 'it had to be God' moments, I distinctly heard the Lord tell me to raise him to be a good husband, and he would be a good son. It was a pivotal moment for me...one that changed the direction of everything I did for my baby.

I remember gazing at that beautiful little person like it was yesterday. He was looking back at me like I was the center of his universe. He casually moved his gaze from my face to the lamp behind me. The pulling away process had already begun. A sadness slowly washed over me. Not a tidal wave. Just a trickle of bittersweet sorrow. A realization of what is inevitable; that he is his own person. The travailing of birth is only a small part of the bigger picture. Life would be a series of growing away that would bring him, and me, to this day.

In the tradition of the unity candles at weddings, there are three candles. The mother of the bride and the mother of groom light the candles on the outside. The couple takes those two candles, put the flames together and light the center candle, creating their own single flame. Then they blow out the individual candles. It's all symbolic of the two becoming one. It's also profoundly symbolic to the mothers.

I don't want to use one of those trick candles that fizzle and re-light it self over and over again. How embarrassing that would be for Jacob to stand before his bride and have to keep blowing out the fizzling and smoking candle. How frustrating for Alistair to have to watch it.
So, two decades from that soft, quiet, snowy day when I asked God to help me not mess it up too badly, I'm facing the continued challenge. As Jacob casually looks past me and focuses on someone else, I am keenly aware of how sad I am. I can only pray that God fills in the gaps where I failed and that I didn't mess it all up too badly. I pray I raised him to be a good husband. I ask God, again, to do what He has to do in me to make me a good mother and a good mother-in-law.

Later the same day…..Crazy as a loon…..

There really isn’t anything a mom can do to prepare for this day. It’s like labor. You can take about it, breath deep and read books, but you can’t really prepare for it. You can surround yourself with people who love you and will help, but it’s something you still have to do by yourself.

Trying to get ready for the wedding. Frustration abounds…..
Nina's dress in torn...She tore it waiting for her dress to be ironed. We can't find her summer shoes anywhere. Her winter shoes look like boy shoes. Not appropriate for a wedding...
Cayah's dress is stained.... Wasn’t stained the last time she wore it.... was stained in the process of laundry.... must have been trampled on the laundry room floor.... there are no other dresses for this particular child.

Miriam’s shoes were worn to the trampoline and rained on....We’ve had the worst draught the state has had since World War Two and it rains on her shoes. Seems the dogs chewed a bit on them as well. No winter shoes for her to fall back on.... Just summer tenny-runners with dirty yellow shoestrings.

My one and only dress is in the dry cleaners. Costs eight bucks to bail out.... it’s being held hostage for more than I paid for the dress. Am I having fun yet? No....I’ve been crying on and off all morning. I sat in the bathtub to see if I could get centered. I must be low in potassium.... I felt like I was having a heart attack. I knew I couldn't die on Jacob's wedding day. Folks would think I was upstaging the occasion. I don't want to be found wet and naked and puckered up.... I was determined to drag myself out and die in bed with clothes on. I felt the pulse in my face for thirty minutes.

Jacob worked today. The shirt he was going to wear to his own wedding, James wore yesterday to court. Seems it’s the community white shirt. It's in the wash as I write this. James announced that he was going to wear a T-shirt. I felt compelled to rip his rotten head off. I decided that his demise would upstage Jacob's wedding as well. Will let the miserable teen-ager live...for now.

I have a migraine and can't open my eyes very far. Can feel the pulse behind my eyes. Broke out in big un-healing boils on my face this morning. Now I have a matching set.... My arms have had them for eight years. I have been able to cover them with long sleeves. I can't cover my face. I wish I could convert to Islam for the day and wear a face scarf. Then only my puffy, sore eyes will throb over the top of something pretty.

Adam is still asleep. He was up all night fighting galactic terrorists on the Internet. Says he may not go to the wedding. When I called him yesterday and suggested he come home so he could go to the wedding; he asked “who's wedding?” He’s still dancing to a difference CD than the rest of us. Earth to Adam.... Come back from La-la land and attend your brothers wedding.
Jacob just brought me his birth certificate for confirmation that he was born. I started to cry. I don't know where this is coming from. It’s like I was a little Italian Jewish lady in another life and she shows up and wants to feed everyone when they come over and in times like this, she comes out in the crying mama as her boy gets married. Good grief.... If I yell “Mozel Tov!!” when they say I do, I'll die.

James wanted to know where he could buy cheap shaving cream. I recommended white shoe polish for the car. I reminded him to keep the car safe.... No whiting out windows or anything. He said, "Aw shucks mom.... Can’t I cut the breaks?" I sure can't wait until I'm not stupid anymore. It's a mystery to me how two stupid people like Michael and I made such smart teen-agers.

I have to go to the Thrift Shop before we go to the courthouse. Dress for Cayah….. shoes for Miriam and Nina. Crazy as a loon on this end.

Later the same day….

Well...I survived the wedding. I couldn't get to the dry cleaners to get my only cotton dress so I had to wear a dressy polyester dress, which makes me sweat. I couldn't wear my clogs with it so I had to force my fat feet into my only dressy shoes. It wouldn't have been much of a problem except the night before I knocked the whole nail off of my baby toe and my foot hurt something awful. The poly dress had long sleeves so the oozing skin lesions on my arms were covered. Pancake make-up almost covered the boils on my face. I had that ‘far away---other worldly’ look. Other than that, I was fine.

I hot glued Miriam's sandals and sewed Nina's torn sleeve with cross-stitch thread and found something in the “dress-ups” box for Cayah. Nina found out that I had to spend her birthday money at the thrift shop for shoes and she rummaged up a pair that fit with socks. If she pinched her toes under, they wouldn't flop.

Adam got up but slept on the way to the mountains for the wedding. He didn't have a thing clean so I found something from the outgoing ‘Give Away” box for him to iron. It didn't seem to bother him that he was wearing a bright, yellow, plaid, seersucker shirt. He couldn't possibly look worse than his little sister's Queen Esther dress. Michael put on his suit, which he only wears at funerals and job interviews. The backs of the knees were wrinkled from the long hang in the closet. Something about not being noticed on a galloping horse came up.

Our days of everyone going to the same place… at the same time… are long gone. The fifteen-passenger van is now a" white trash storage unit" in the yard. Jacob took his clothes to change at the courthouse in his car. The Marlow Menagerie was ready to move out. Jacob's car wouldn't start. With no panic whatsoever, he got out, pulled out his jumper cables and hooked his car up to his father’s car. If I've done nothing else for my kids, I've prepared them for real life. I thought we were on the way to the courthouse. He announced that he had to stop off at Wal-Mart to get a pair of slacks. Seems he sat on a lid of cobalt blue paint that I left on the floor in my painting project. When I'm stressed, I start huge unrelated projects.... This time I'm painting my dining room.

We arrived at the new West Jefferson Courthouse. The front looked like the courthouse on the Back to the Future movies. "Save the Clock Tower" was the theme in the parking lot for the kids. The inside of the courthouse was beautiful. The center lobby was a large round area with open staircases going up three floors to a large glass dome. I limped in and found a seat in the lobby, my baby toe throbbing in my shoe. The good news is that the throbbing behind my eyes matched the toe. I'm told that's a good thing.

Cayah, Nina and Miriam walked up and down the circular stairs and yelled their echoing hellos to me from each level. It was late in the day on a Friday in a government building. Needless to say, the place was nearly deserted. I warned Jacob and Alistair about government operations and suggested they do all the paperwork a week in advance and make an appointment for the ceremony. Since I'm stupid, that didn't happen. Up and down the stairs they went, to this office and that office while we waited.

Adam fell asleep in the lobby with his double-jointed shoulders, pulled out of socket, arms dangling off the small bench, backwards. It's horrible to see him all broken looking like that and I encourage him not to do that in public. It is disturbing for outsiders who don't see it all of the time. A six foot four inch man lying on a thirty-six inch bench, sound asleep in the lobby of the courthouse...in a bright yellow, poorly ironed shirt, arms dangling backwards ...yep.... I’m used to it. Couldn't be any worse than the mother of the groom limping along with her face covered in boils, pancake make-up sweating off..

Throw in the bi-racial element in this gaggle of hoons and we made quite a spectacle. Alistair is Hispanic / White and Jacob is white. The groom has seven white brothers and sisters in an assortment of ages and genders. The brides' mom is Hispanic and her husband is black. Their son is black. The maid of honor is black, her boyfriend is white. We live in the new south. I don't have a problem with any of it, and in all honesty I can't wait for Hispanic grandbabies.

Alistair was flitting…or rather clumping…up and down the stairs in a formal. Gold and black evening gown….and big clumpy shoes that are in style today. Mother of the bride is four feet tall; mother of the groom is six-two in her high heels. Brother of the groom asleep in a contorted manner.... the further we go, the stranger it gets.

The only magistrate had gone home and was called back to the courthouse. We waited. I got tired of talking through a live plant with the mother of the bride. I carefully moved the pot over four inches. The bottom of the plant oozed out a light green liquid. Before I could move it another inch, I gasped for breath and the father of the bride, grabbed his nose and jumped up. The mother of the bride grabbed her purse and followed him, saying something in Spanish. I gagged and tried to keep from throwing up. I actually left my purse and the accumulation of things I'd confiscated from the children; (baseball hat, game boy, walky-talky, wallet, keys, the bag of goodies from the county to the bride and groom...etc.) I had to get away from that awful smell. It was concentrated swamp water. More disgusting than human sewage or rotten eggs. Worse than a stink bomb.

Going across the lobby to the other side wasn't far enough. The smell hovered like a cloud. We dashed to the elevator, holding our noses and went to the second floor. The kids and wedding party were there, complaining about the stench. There was no way away from it. Doors opened to the offices on all the floors and employees looked at the band of gypsies that was our son's wedding party and they looked at us like we stunk up the place. I thought about telling them what the stink was. I figured a six-foot-two, hobbling; sweaty lady with boils on her face wouldn't be very convincing.

The magistrate finally showed up. She was obviously dressed for casual Friday. We gathered in the courtroom and Jacob and Alistair said their vows. It was beautiful and Michael cried. I didn't. It's strange. I don't know where that little Italian Jewish lady goes when I expect her.
The magistrate and I were the last ones out. I mentioned the smell that had taken over the whole courthouse. It was sickening. She graciously said that she wondered what it was. I know she thought we stunk up the place. I told her that it would take them forever to find out and I knew. I pointed to the plant on the lower level and told her what came out of the bottom. There was no evidence left.... It had soaked into the carpet. She thanked me and said that she would leave a note on it for maintenance.

We waited in the parking lot for the new Mr. and Mrs. Turner to come out. The magistrate and another employee had carefully picked up the plant and placed it on a rolling cart. They complained loudly about the stench and had it removed from the building.

Michael and I had four dollars between us, so we bought the girls a couple of happy meals and came home. Jacob and Alistair said they were going to camp out for their honeymoon. They both like that kind of rustic stuff. I came home with only six children and suffered mock empty nest syndrome.

This morning we found their tent on our front lawn, between the old van and the deflated swimming pool. I sighed and wondered if any of them would ever leave. They took the girls swimming for the day.

So, real life happens. No pretense. No anti-climax. No dashed dreams. Just two shoulders against the grindstone now. Two heads being better than one. Two putting ten thousand to flight. What more could a mother want?