The Maine Event

My daughter is married.

Somehow the baby that could barely tolerate being out of my arms is now, a quarter of a century later, a married woman.

It's a lot to comprehend.

It's been over four years since my own marriage fell apart, and although the trail of destruction the divorce left has not exactly been scoured away by the winds of time, there's been some pretty significant erosion. Oh, it's true that there were separate tables for him and his relatives and for me and mine, but there were incursions into one another's territory.

He danced with my mother. More than once. God knows what she said to him, but the music was so loud that regardless of what either of them said, it's doubtful that they could hear one another. I had a chance to chat with all of his brothers and sisters, and spent plenty of time with his niece who happens to be one of my favorite people.

And so the story of a divorce segues into the story of a marriage. Stories do that. They have a mind of their own, stories do. A baby girl is born, and some time later all hell breaks loose. There's heartbreak. A reversal. The story continues. There's a divorce. There's a wedding. And at this wedding, for the first time ever, four generations of  a rather unusual family find themselves in one place at the same time.

And now I'm home on my couch with my ancient cat purring on my lap. The man who loves me is at his place--savoring the solitude--or, who knows, rattling around in it, lost and wondering what happened to all the joyous hubbub. The relatives and friends are home, too--or making their way there by car, ogling fall foliage as they go. The younger daughter is running victory laps around my mother's trailer, having carried out her Maid of Honor/Party Captain duties, and safely returned my mother and her oxygen machine.

It was a peak family moment, this wedding.

Smartly

I'm over here today.

http://thesmartlyla.com/?p=830

Collateral Damage #2

My daughters have a baby brother courtesy of Mr.Ex & the Little Missus. From all reports he is quite adorable and bears a certain resemblance to his sisters.

I will never know him.

I am the child of a blended family--blended before blending was popular or tolerated or accepted or the norm. My mother was my father's 3rd wife. Marriage #1 produced no children (he said.) Marriage #2 was to a woman who was married previously. She had a daughter from that previous marriage and together my father and wife # 2 had a son (the siring of the son is a matter of some debate--but nevermind because this is the simple version of the story.) The daughter of the previous marriage became pregnant at age 16 and was married (or not--this is the simple version of the story, remember) But the marriage (or the not-marriage) fell apart, and my father and wife #2 took over the raising of the baby who was legally adopted by my father and wife #2. But wife #2 died, and my father and my mother fell in love, and eloped, and kept their marriage secret, and after some months eventually came out of the closet about being married. The adopted girl was then raised by them, and I was born, and the adopted girl thereby became my adopted half-sister. When my brothers were born, she was their adopted half-sister too.

We all spoke. Some of us lived together, and those that didn't got together with us frequently to barbecue, play badminton, shuffle board, horse shoes and canasta.  I didn't know then that all of that was some kind of miracle.