Friday, March 23, 2012

Josh and Cara Are Getting Married


We've been planning this weekend for 30 some years. Friends with the parents of the groom, it has always been our intention to dance at our children's weddings. This weekend we'll get the chance. Josh and Cara are getting married.

Reggie's been planning and thinking and organizing and fretting and smiling from ear to ear for a year or so. Getting along with the in-laws has made this all much easier, if easy can be used when planning a rehearsal dinner in NYC when you live outside LA. Small decisions and big decisions all received the same careful attention. Josh is doing this one time and one time only... it's going to be perfect.

While she was Suzi-sitting, Reggie and I gave lots of thought to the decorations for the rehearsal dinner. Catalogs and Google were perused and items considered and discarded as we interrupted ourselved with memories.....

Big Cuter and Josh in diapers, jumping on a bed in Acapulco. They were so little; when did they grow bigger (much much bigger) than their moms? The two boys going eyeball to eyeball with the iguanas which lived in the greenery surrounding our casita's patio; it was a toss-up – who was more scared of whom? Or should it be who was more intrigued by the other? These were very curious boys.

That curiosity led Josh to collect a multitude of graduate degrees in the Southeast. It's not easy to live so far from your children, as TBG and I can attest. It makes it easier to have them so far away when you know that they are surrounded by love. And Josh and Cara have lots of that.

He's a trailing spouse to her dream job, and luckily they are both as happy as clams. Good work and good people and now they are getting married. Registered for housewares and camping gear, their lives together will be filled with adventures and domesticity. It's a perfect combination.

Hotel reservations were made 5 minutes from the festivities' venues. The rehearsal dinner should end in time for us to watch Indiana trounce Kentucky (you heard it here first!) in the Sweet 16 and the wedding on Saturday doesn't conflict with anything we really need to watch (sigh.... it's the only up-side to Georgetown's loss last week). Old friends will be there to share the joy... and the basketball. We haven't watched sports with Orb Kcrob for decades. We can hardly wait.

Spending two days with our own bride-and-groom-to-be on our way to NYC has put us in a celebratory mood. How lucky we four parents are – our kids are on their way to a lifetime of love and devotion and friendship and happiness and we're sending them off with a fabulous party. Alongside the new clothes and the registries and the menu planning and the logistics we're floating on the love.

And there's so much love. Watching Little Cuter and SIR tend to each other with delicacy and compassion filled our souls. Listening to Reggie describe her kids with similar adjectives and smiles did the same. We've avoided a landmine – we like our children's choices. I can't imagine what we'd do if our kids chose a partner we didn't like.... or worse, one who didn't like us.

Instead, tomorrow Reggie and Bob will welcome a girl into their all-boys lives, a talented, beautiful, thoughtful and kind girl who loves their son to distraction. Shared passions and interests and expectations and attitudes will send them on their way with full hearts. The best wishes of family and friends will ring in their ears long after the orchestra has played the last dance. Memories will linger and life will go on and, in a few months, Josh's parents will come to Tucson to watch our kids join their hands in marriage.

Where has the time gone? I'm not quite sure. What I am sure of is that love makes the world go round.... and TBG and I are going to be surrounded by it this weekend.

Best wishes, Josh and Cara. We wish you joy and happiness and eons and tons of love.

1 comment:

  1. Unrelated to today's post, but in a macro view, all is connected...Fellow member of the PTSD club, I read a truly wonderful and positive article in the NY Times. So much of what you have shared here is reflected in scientific studies quoted: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/post-traumatic-stresss-surprisingly-positive-flip-side.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1&adxnnl=1&hpw&adxnnlx=1332547213-Y8t5kYj/Ty6ji5nclyk6XA Enjoy our lovely spring orange blossoms, just the scent for a happy wedding! Best to you.

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