I gave myself a bit more time this week. I am unsetttled in my writing. Processing way to many emotions. I finally decided to go with what I had. None of it is perfect, ever...So move on ahead. Her we go.
There is a particular kind of light that comes through old windows. Not clean. Not straight. The glass has been there long enough to develop its own opinions about where light should go, and the result is something you feel more than see. A waviness. A bend. The 1925 farmhouse we rented for the weekend had that kind of light from the remaining two original windows in the dining room. On Saturday afternoon, with my whole family crammed around a lunch table that was not quite big enough for all of us, the light fell across the room in a way I kept noticing.
My parents were there. Eighty-nine and ninety years old. Married sixty-nine years. My mother kept touching things, the edge of the table, a grandchild's arm, the way she does when she is trying to stay inside the moment. My father sat beside her, the way he always sits beside her, close enough that their chairs nearly touched, and I watched them watch my grandkids eat and thought: sixty-nine years. There are experiences inside that amount of time I don't have language for.
All of my kids were there. All of my grandkids. My siblings and their kids. The first time in longer than I can accurately remember that we had all been in the same room. I kept doing the headcount in my head, not because I was worried anyone was missing, but because the fullness of it kept catching me off guard. A prayer said for the family members with us no longer.
The only person missing was Elise. She was across multiple farm fields getting her veil pinned, her makeup done, doing whatever it is brides do in the hours before the whole landscape of a life shifts. Her chair sat at the table. Nobody said anything about it. We ate and got loud and kept passing food around, and that chair just sat there, and I thought: this is the last time this particular version of us exists. After today there is a new configuration.
I had spent weeks in the studio making silk pieces for the women in her wedding party. Hand-dyed. Her colors. I have worked in silk for a long time and I have never been more precise with the dye bath than I was on those pieces. They had to be right. I don't fully know how to explain the weight of making something for your daughter's wedding except to say that your hands know the difference. Mine did.
The card for the letter I wrote for her to open the morning of her wedding
The ceremony itself was, and I am choosing this word carefully, perfect. One of my assistant coaches from a few years ago doubles as a DJ on weekends. We only had one year together, but that was enough to see exactly who he is: his character, his love for people, his love for the Lord. All of that showed up in how he ran practice. Turns out it shows up the same way behind the "turntables". He spun exactly the right music at exactly the right volume all night long. That is not a small thing.
My new son-in-law, is smart, settled in himself, and diligent in his attention to my daughter in all the ways that matter across a long time. Not the showy ways. The real ways. My daughter is not a woman who needs to be carried through anything. He seems to understand that instinctively. He just shows up alongside her, that is everything.
The father of the bride toast was, without exaggeration, one of the hardest things I have ever stood up and done. I had a page of notes folded into my jacket pocket. Rewrote them four times. Stood at the microphone and thought: none of this is the right thing to say. Said it anyway. What I tried to say is that she is sunshine for those that need it an a brighter light for those already shining. She can plan an event down to the last detail and somehow still make every single person in the room feel like they are the most important one there. That is not a learned skill. That is just who she is. I told her husband (wierd to say): you see her clearly, you love what you see, and you lift her up without trying to change her. For a father, there is no greater thing than knowing your daughter is truly seen, not only for who she is but for what she is. I closed with a blessing. Deep roots, wide joy, a faith that supports you when nothing else does.
Wedding Day
I don't know if any of it was projected or received the way I intended. She was crying. I was something adjacent to crying, yea no certainly crying. My mother was definitely crying. There's a version of this where I nailed it and a version where I just stood at a microphone with tears and a fistful of notes and rambled my way through love. Probably some combination. I'll take it.
The weather had been building since mid afternoon. Anyone who has lived in Nebraska long enough knows that sky. The particular gray-green shade that means the atmosphere has made a decision. We had rain after the ceremony, which I've already accounted for on the good luck ledger. We had wind. We had, it turned out, a couple of tornadoes in the general neighborhood. The power went out around half past eleven. By then the dancing had already been something. My friends were on the floor. My parents were watching from the edge of the room. And then it ended the way Nebraska sometimes decides things should end.
My phone lit up at 12:03 in the morning. National Weather Service. Imminent threat. Destructive winds. Take shelter now. I heard later that people who had left earlier in the evening were pulling over on dark section roads and highways, knocking on farmhouse doors they had never knocked on before. Strangers in the middle of fields opening their doors and letting them in. Everyone was fine. It is, in the odd way that the best versions of these things tend to be, kind of wonderful.
Tornadoes and fires devastating Nebraska this month.
Elise and Kolin are heading to Montana. I knew that going in and have made my way to a kind of peace with it. The distance is real. Montana is not a quick drive. But what keeps coming back to me, more than anything else from the whole weekend, is that they worship together. They pray together. They are building on the right foundation before the house is even up. That quiets something in me I wouldn't know how to name.
I wrote her a letter to open on the morning of the wedding. She couldn't, She was already too far into the feeling the emotion if the day. She read it the day after. She is radiant. She has always been radiant. She just has a new last name now and a lot of Montana sky ahead of her. I am not losing her, I know that.
I am watching her win.
Keep making, keep growing, be you.
Tio
Awesome friend group and wedding party
I Brought My Laptop to the Graduation