Well, the father of the bride died the day before the wedding but the wedding of the S&H went ahead anyway.
I couldn’t believe it was going to, I thought right up until the morning of it that someone would have to good sense to call a halt to proceedings. And, as the wrongness went, it got worse. The register office, a fabulous council owned Victorian Gothic venue, shut the doors and everyone out in the cold after so long. The ceremony was very nice but the following hour of photography in the picturesque but freezing grounds was far too long for recently bereaved people. I’m glad my mother hadn’t gone; it would have killed her off quite nicely, though I did wish some of our relatives had been invited or it had been arranged so my son could have had his pal as best man or the bride her friend as bridesmaid.
We missed the drinks and the chance to get to know who people were, as we had to get the car to our overnight hotel and back in a taxi, and then towards the end of the meal when I was getting ready to get up and give the speech I’d been asked to give, someone who’d been asked at the last minute got up and spoke instead. I felt insulted but no doubt nothing like as upset as the lady seated near us we’d been conversing with, who we discovered was the sister of the deceased. Quite how she managed to make polite conversation with complete strangers the day after losing her brother, I have no idea. No one should have to do that, it’s too much to ask.
Then the groom hasn’t got a job; no way of supporting his wife, to say nothing of his cats.
I spoke to my mother today who said weddings are like that, and that’s only when your child is marrying someone you like, which we do. When they are marrying someone you hate it must be much worse.
So I rang a friend last night, whose father is on the verge of death, intestate and about to be done over by his grandson. She isn’t having much luck either, to say the least. I rang another friend this morning, to discover her brother has been found dead, cause unknown, but I banged on about my troubles for a good five minutes before she shut me up.
I remember when our son was born. As my husband was working as a scientist for the Health service at the time we chatted inconsequentially about his job and future prospects right through the Caesarean section and I never said: Do you mind? I’m having a baby here!
Life can be like that. All the momentous words and overwhelming feelings at an occasion, so often get shoved to one side. It still seems wrong to me. You should honour grief and the passing of someone you love, just as you should celebrate a wedding and be allowed to say so. I stiff upper lipped it all the way through the weeks that should have been around the funeral my father never had and never got to say the words I wanted to say.
People should not get born, or married or die in a rush. These are the major events of anyone’s life, each deserves its space and time. All we have are words, they should not be swallowed and shut up, they should be said at the right time, as we honour our feelings by expressing them.
How is 2014 turning out for you? From this end it’s looking fairly rum but as the Labour party remarked in 1997: Things can only get better.
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JaneLaverick.com – challenged