The opportunities come daily now to be involved in others love stories success journeys and spectacular fun. Another side effect of taking the bad medicine out to allow peace, joy and sunshine find you, is you become more you.
The latest opportunity was steeped in as much unconventional joy as any I have ever been a part of. It started several years ago with a "knowship" growing into a "friendship" that now is more like a "kinship". We are not related by blood or marriage, but more by the happenings like divorce, broken friendships and undoing damage caused by those who we allowed to take up more space than we should have. But stopping myself there to not should on myself will help me to remember that all things, good, bad, ugly or indifferent can still serve to help me smile because I learned what it was that that situation came to teach me. It also means that once the lesson is learned, the space is created for the next better thing to come. Of course I am speaking of my friend Kerry. She is one of those friends to me that exemplifies understanding. She has a huge sense of justice and of what is right and wrong. She also has a huge heart and will give more than she should, but never takes more than enough of any part she plays. She is just fair...to a fault. I like her because she sees me...even the parts that I try so hard to hide from others, she still gets and calls me on it often.
Through the last few years our kinship was strengthened more by what we were surviving than what we were doing...and you can say the "D" word here...but we will leave it unsaid. Neither trip was pretty...but the landing spot not too shabby!
So this background brings us to a few months ago. And while I am still waiting on my next love story, Kerry found hers pretty soon after leaving the last "unhappily ever after". Her Knight Mike, is more like a regular guy in a pickup than a warrior on a white horse, but he fights for her just as gallantly as any hero in a fairy tale. He is good people. Not perfect, and there are mistakes...but all the does now to be good to her and better to her kids, far outweighs any issue I could ever be told. After all if we were perfect what would be the point in all this anyway?
The question was popped...and I was a part of that surprise as well as playing along here and there in the story. I was so excited...and beyond thrilled for them both, because their love story is about getting past the BAD--sometimes really really bad to find the good. So earlier this year I get a phone call, and my friend in her unconventional wisdom asked me to do something that not only was never on my bucket list...it was never on any list. She asked me to officiate their wedding. To say that I was flattered would be a huge understatement...but since my newest philosophy of saying yes to as many opportunities as I can is firmly in place...of course I said yes.
Now I don't want you to think that I just said..oh yeah I can so do this and do it well. Panic mode set in about 50 different times because it occurred to me that you can seriously mess us someones day by saying the wrong thing...but to say the wrong thing on their special day, well that's just beyond too important to say fail and be ok with it.
I started writing the wedding speech about 16 different times. Until one day I just decided to write about them. Not about what I thought marriage meant, or what society tells it should mean but from inside their love story what it means to them. I had it written and tweaked it several times before finally getting the nerve to share it with the bride to be. And she was the only one that heard it before the big day.
So what I wrote is what follows...and to make it flow as if you were there, the vows they wrote for each other are included(in italics). But I have to add this...it was only after hearing her humorous but so accurate vows to each other that I knew I had written it just right.
The ceremony went as follows...the usually processional to a beautiful little garden spot with Kerry and Mikes friends, a few family and all those wonderful his and hers kids collection--spectacular, and I said---
First I want to say hello to everyone joining Kerry and Mike as they celebrate their decision to be together.
Many times in life we hear things like happily ever after, made for each other, match made in heaven or the perfect couple. Even at times we compare love stores to fairy tales..and while it always makes me smile and think of a pretty picture of life, sometimes it just aint real.
Real people make mistakes, get divorces, get mad and get even. Real people lose their jobs, have fights and have to start over.
Real people also believe in second chances, setting boundaries and loving unconditionally.
I'm not sure about any of you…but most fairly tales are kinda scary…just think of the big bad wolf. And more than one of the perfect couples I have known are no longer together.
We are not here to talk about stories or fairy tales or even happily ever after, we are here to talk about love, commitment, and getting even more real. Real people who refuse to let the tough moments in life keep them from knowing that there is always more good, and that even through the bad we find the better.
Real people who will always start over, the get past the bad and find their smile. Great people who always help others, go back to work and love their kids.
Real people who believe in second, third or even more chances to get it right. They fight with the understanding of what they are fighting for. They are even ready to give others chances to get it right or to take chances to make it so.
Two of the most real people I have ever known in my life have asked us all here today as they accept the other and smile at their chance to get it right.
I hope that each of you know that they love you and have asked you and I to share in this moment of celebration as they speak their vows to each other and we witness their joy in this new beginning.
[At this point Mike reads his wonderful little speech to Kerry...and I do not have a copy of it...but it was heartfelt and beautiful-maybe we can add it later]
Kerry's reply to Mike
Whenever I think about the night we met, it always makes my heart smile. Not a normal smile, but one that reaches down to my heart. I had decided that I was content to be alone and then there you were. Now I cannot imagine my life without you. You are everything I ever hoped to find in a a man, strong yet gentle, kind but firm, loving and romantic, smart but goofy, hard working and fun, committed and spontaneous. No one is ever perfect but you are perfect for me. You are all that i need, and to you I give my soul to keep. You see me, love me just the way i am. For you I am a better woman.
Vows to Kerry-
"Do you promise to love, honor, cook for, clean up after, surrender your share of the blanket to, live with flatulence and snoring and relinquish the remote 'til death do you part?"
She said "I do".
Vows to Mike-
"You have the right to remain silent anything you say may and probably will be held against you the rest of your life. You have the right to the last 2 words in every discussion as long as those words are "Yes Dear", do you understand these rights as they have been explained to you?"
He said "I do".
I have one more thing to add--I will ask of you to support them as they take one more step on their journey. They have decided to go forward from here as a couple. Two people who will fight with each other if they believe they are right, but never doubt the strength they have as they fight beside each other. Standing against any who would disrupt what they are building, keeping their kids healthy and their world sane.
I now pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss your bride.
How could anything be more perfect? It is a very special memory for me...and it means the world that I was asked to be a part of their day. I love too how many people said it was perfect. Perfection on a wedding day is pretty rare...but if they say we got it...I choose to believe them.
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