Today I have been married 9 years to my best friend.
This time 9 years ago I was getting my hair and makeup done, laughing and making memories with my bridesmaids, and among my bridesmaids was my maid of honor; my mother.
The whole reason that the wedding date was chosen for the end of June is because my mother worked in the school system, so having a summer wedding would ensure more time with her then if I got married in October, which was the original plan because I always wanted to get married during my favorite and most beautiful season of the year. Of course, I wanted more than less time with my mother, especially while getting ready to walk down the aisle; Of course, I did.
She came about four days earlier than my bridesmaids, giving us time together to do wedding prep things that she wished she could have done more of, if it wasn’t for the distance. We even were treated to afternoon tea at the Biltmore House in Asheville by a woman who I was a caregiver for at that time. One of my fondest memories of that time together is when she poured me a tall glass of wine and gave me two Tylenol PM before I went to bed, and I think she did the same for herself. Things may have been just a wee bit stressful a few days before the big day!
I’ve been told that blog posts that answer a question for someone or gives them step by step instructions are statistically more likely to give a blogger increased visitor traffic, but in this case, I have no answer or wisdom as to how deal with grief when it is tied to the happiest day of your life, marrying your best friend.
No wisdom here, just feelings of “This too, God? Why does my anniversary have to be affected by this pain too?” and desperately trying to find ways to remember all the precious moments of that day that didn’t include her, like when I surprised my husband by singing “Be Thou My Vision” acapella and changed “Thou” to “Our” before walking down aisle to say, “I do”. It had Jeremy and his groomsmen sweating a bit, and one even said more audibly than he realized “Dude, I just saw her a minute ago! She is still here!”, causing the congregation to silently chuckle. And when one of Jeremy’s dearest childhood friends sang a song while playing the guitar that made everyone cry, and when Jeremy forgot the hair tie to tie off the three stranded cord that we braided together.
But no.
No, I can’t just have these sweet memories and pictures to look at. Instead, I can’t help but remember how my mother walked me down the aisle and gave me away to a man that she knew would love me and take care of me for as long as I live, something that she herself hadn’t experienced yet. Little did she know that her moment of this assurance would come just 7 years later, and I will forever be grateful to the man who loved and took care of my mother until her last day this side of heaven.
Instead, I’m trying to remember the speech she gave at my poorly attended reception, because apparently lots of people got married on June 28th, 2014. I’m wishing I had all of it on video, so that I could remember all that she said in her speech.
Instead, I’m remembering the beautiful coral lace dress that she wore, and how years later she called and said “Do you want my maid of honor dress? Because if you don’t want it, it’s going to Good Will. I won’t ever wear it again and I need to start getting rid of things.”
Thank the Lord, I kept it.
Grief is unfair. It is a thief of joy and happiness in its purest sense that continues to morph and be ever present. “It gets better” is a well-meaning statement, but it’s an incomplete and uncharitable one, because in order for it to “get better”, you have to go through all the heart wrenching pain and ambushes of the journey. And the “better” that I’m told is ahead is just different, not better. It means that my brain is mostly catching up with my heart and more time has passed. There is a difference between “better” and “different”.
And this year I’m also remembering how happy I was to have my brother Lucas with us, and truly with us, sober and present, something that I rarely experienced with him and yet longed and prayed for. It made my wedding day even more precious. Now he is in heaven, experiencing the wedding feast of Christ, pain free and rid of anxiety and fear. Selfishly his current reality isn’t enough to comfort me right now.
So, no answers over here, no profound thoughts or even a tie in of how this is all supposed to point myself and others to Christ. Instead, what I have for you is truly Messpresso with it’s most bitter and cheap tasting beans, and a prayer for something precious to turn my 9-year wedding anniversary into “happy thoughts” that will act as a kind of pixie dust that will lift me off the floor and fly me out of this pain; pain that won’t get better, does become different, and never goes away.
