Ink Aria

Loving Those Who Get Married and Die

Renee Gehman

A knot has been tied, a family reconfigured. A little sister: Married!

It came as no surprise; in fact, it was expected long before it came to pass. Months of preparations and countless discussions of wedding and marriage details carried us along to the Big Day and became as casual a part of life as toothbrushing.

Yet as natural as the idea of a marriage may become, little can be done to prepare oneself for the swell of emotions that ensue when one sees her little sister—her only sister—gliding toward the front of the church, looking surprisingly grown up, strikingly beautiful. His name is now hers, his house now hers also. And now the place we together called home for twenty-something years is only one person (namely, me) shy of empty nestedness.

As my sister’s maid of honor for the wedding, several traditional duties were bestowed upon me along the way. On the actual wedding day, most of my work seemed to revolve around dress maintenance. The two main responsibilities are to keep the train of the dress spread as photogenically as possible at all times and to prepare the bustle between ceremony and reception.

So I learned how to bustle, which, for possible readers-unacquainted-with-bustling, is a precise art of matching color-coded hooks and eyes to arrange a long dress into a practical, dance-ready length while still giving high regard to aesthetics and symmetry. 

Another, perhaps more significant, task was to compose a speech to accompany a toast to the couple at the reception (and here at last is where we begin to approach the topic indicated in the title). Coming up with something to say was not a problem. I typed it all out and then discovered upon printing that it was three pages long, single-spaced. No, the primary trouble I had with composing this speech was that, no matter how I worded the thing, I could not seem to make it into something that could not also be spoken at a funeral.

I told stories about our relationship. I painted pictures of her in scenes that, to me, described who she was as a person. I included humor and sentimentality, words of praise and words of love. If it weren’t for the part about her meeting Andrew, and then the part about his qualities, my wedding toast would have sounded suspiciously eulogaic.

As I wrote the speech, I kept having pesky flashbacks to a funeral I had attended just a few weeks earlier, for an elderly man. At the service, prepared comments were made by a group of family and friends who each covered one topic or aspect of the man’s life: Him as a person. Him as a working man. Him as a man of faith. Him as a family man. In this interesting, comprehensive way, stories were told, idiosyncracies were acknowledged, and the man was celebrated and honored for the whole of his person. Love for him was conveyed as collectively and sincerely as perhaps it ever had been.

The apparent fine line between wedding toast and eulogy I seemed to be happening upon was at first unsettling for me. Why should material for a happy wedding speech also serve as appropriate fodder for a funeral speech?? The more I reflect, however, the more natural and . . . acceptable . . . the connection has become for me.

The connection occurs in what loss does to heighten the awareness of love. I imagine the best days for having your best qualities praised and your worst qualities spoken of endearingly are the days of your wedding and your funeral. Suddenly little things like the person leaving a messy bathroom all the time become endearing to the point of tears of sorrow over the loss of this grievance.

This was the quarrel I often had with my sister, about the only part of her leaving home I looked forward to. Yet as the days till the wedding got fewer and fewer, so increased the urge to say to my sister: No, you can’t leave! You must stay here and leave your clothes on the bathroom floor! Who will leave their clothes on the bathroom floor for me to chuck out angrily?! How can you take this role away from me?!

Maybe if I die before Michael King (or maybe at my wedding, because that is less morbid) he will speak fondly of my consistent tardiness with submitting articles.

There certainly is something about losing people that makes us appreciate them more. This is nothing new under the sun. It’s even biblical. Jacob runs away from murderously angry Esau, only to reunite years later when all is water under the bridge and Esau is just glad to see his brother again. Joseph, too, has brother issues in his youth, but after years apart the brothers have gotten over what irritated them about him, and they miss him.

And what about the prodigal son? Here is a prime example of how arbitrary a loved one’s mistakes can become when there is some form of estrangement and, eventually, reunion. I

If there were a moral for this reflection on loving those who get married and die it would seem to be, “If you feel underappreciated by loved ones, leave periodically,” but that is not quite what I want to say, so maybe I want to avoid moral statements here.

Or perhaps we can take something from the statement of some reminders that are by no means groundbreaking but are, I think, good to remember. Consider your loved ones regularly. Make a habit of reflecting on what it is about them that you cherish, including the irritants that will become fondly missed quirks. Then tell them, before they get married, if you can, or if not, try to manage it before they die.

—Renee Gehman, Souderton, Pennsylvania, is assistant editor, DreamSeeker Magazine; and high school teacher.