Forty Years...and Not Even One

A year ago today it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. This seemed a particular gift, given the record-setting amount of snow we had gotten in the winter of 2012-2013, snow which had not completely disappeared by the beginning of May. And then it started to rain. The days leading up to May 25^th, 2013, were grey and rainy in our city. It seemed too much to hope for that K.B. and Chris would be blessed with a perfect spring day on which to be married, and yet, it was so.

B. and I drove down to the church hall where we had had our own wedding reception not three years previously. We parked there and then got out to stroll in the sunshine to another church, quite near, in which the wedding was to take place.

I have mentioned before the huge smile illuminating K.B.’s face as she walked down the aisle and as she and Chris exchanged vows. I have never before seen a bride who was so much the embodiment of pure joy. She had been through so much in her life: losing her brother and mother at heart-breakingly young ages, experiencing the breakdown of her first marriage, raising two small children to young adulthood on limited resources. But as Chris said at her funeral, her orientation towards happiness helped her cope with life’s challenges. When she and Chris married a year ago today, all those who loved K.B. felt that yes, now things were turning out right: she had finally met the man who was able to truly appreciate her, and with whom she was able to create a love that would enrich not just their own lives, but the lives of their new blended family and of their large circle of friends, too.

Those of us in the church that day beamed with her, too, knowing that they would be embarking on an exciting journey together, one in which they would delight in the achievements of their children, wait on tenterhooks for the news of the births of grandchildren, walk on beaches around the world, and support each other in new endeavours, such as K.B.’s desire to become a published author. And then January 9^th, 2014, happened…

A strange coincidence for B. and me is that today is also the 40^th anniversary of his uncle and aunt. All weekend there has been a family reunion to celebrate this milestone, and today there was a combination church blessing of the long-married couple and baptism of their youngest grandchild. At the community centre where we dined and danced last night and then gathered again today to have lunch, there was a photo album with pictures of the shower and of every moment of the wedding itself. B.’s uncle wore the outfit he was wearing as a groom 40 years ago, and B.’s sister wore her bridesmaid’s dress.

As I looked around today at the huge number of people gathered to mark this important anniversary, I reflected on the ties that are created when two people exchange vows. From the commitment of the aunt and uncle in 1974, their family grew from two people in a couple to 24 people, including children, grandchildren, step-grandchildren, as well as the spouses and partners of their children. On the back of the church bulletin was the text of one of the hymns we sang, and one of the lines was “May through their union other lives be blest.” And that made me think of K.B. and Chris.

They may not have had a full year of married life together, but in the months they had, they acted as models for how to open one’s heart fully, with joy and generosity, to another person. They also established new connections between the members of their own families and between their new family unit and their friends. Of course it is tremendously difficult not to be mired in grief at the loss of the life we all hoped and expected they would live together. But the life they did live together has left a legacy: those vows they made, and the love they shared, will echo down the generations.

Through their union, our lives were, and will ever be, blessed.