In the crush of wedding bliss (meant literally, see below) there were a few moments over which to get nostalgic. You know those slide shows at receptions with baby pictures of the bride and groom? It gets you thinking. It gets you remembering.
Sunrise, sunset. Is this the little girl I carried? When did she get to be a beauty? and so on.
The Damsel and her Knight in Shining Armor have a tradition -- if you can call three times a tradition, that is. At each of our three eldest children's seminary graduation, we've turned to each other, slapped hands in a high five, and said "ca-ching." As if to say, "that one's in the bank." Of course, it's just a joke, but there's a feeling of completion -- a feeling of "whew, we made it." There's been a similar feeling as these three were married.
Graduating from seminary doesn't make your life a slam dunk, and neither does getting married in the temple, but life is tricky enough that making it to one of these landmarks is cause for celebration. In a way, it's like climbing a cliff face. You cling to the rocks, you slip a little now and then, a few rocks fall on your head, but once in a while you reach a ledge where you can catch your breath.
Now, as for the above mentioned "wedding crush." For sprog #3's reception, the florist wisely sent extra flowers for pinning to various lapels. She knew there would be so much hugging that the first set of flowers would get crushed to smithereens. She was right. The reception was an out-and-out hugfest, and the floor of the hall was strewn with the rose petal-remains of our wedding flowers. It felt like a metaphor for the joy flooding our hearts . . . too much to contain . . . it had to spill out like trailing rose petals on the floor.
The Damsel wishes you all many such happy scenes in your lives to come.
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Margot is a mom of seven and pretty much crazy from it. Online she's known as the Damsel in Dis Dress and blogs at the Old School (http://www.mynewoldschool.com/) and twitters at the_damsel.
