giving Mum away

I've never seen her so happy. She was giddy with joy. I've never seen her so beautiful. The most elegant bride, of any age, that I've witnessed. And Bill, well he looked like the cat that got the cream.

They stood at the front of the church surrounded by their gorgeous grandchilden. The kids fidgeted and  made faces at each other, but the Bride and Groom wouldn't have had it any other way. Then they danced out of the church to that old hit by The Crystals, I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still, da do ron-ron-ron, da do ron-ron, somebody told me that his name was Bill, da do ron-ron-ron, da do ron-ron. The children followed them like they were the pied-piper, and together, in a glorious bunch of kids and beauty they did two laps of the church aisles while the wedding guests clapped in time to the music. Da do ron-ron-ron, da do ron-ron. It was pure celebration.

Five years ago Mum walked out of a church following my darling Step-Dad Don's casket. How could she have possibly known that even as she mourned her beloved Don she was being prepared for Bill. In a way, if you think of time like water, like a deep river we swim through, she walked out of that funeral and straight into her own dream wedding.

You won't have noticed it but she was wearing the same outfit that she wore when she married Don twenty-three years ago. We updated it a little, but the skirt and top were the same. Mum knew almost as soon as she and Bill got engaged that she didn't want to wear anything else. Some how it just made sense.

I understood this after I had a dream in which Don met Bill. In the dream we were all standing in a hallway, Bill on one side, Don on the other, and Mum in the middle. I turned to Don and asked him, "what do you think?" Meaning, "What do you think about Mum and  Bill?" He shrugged and looked cagey at first, as he was known to do, and so I tickled him in the ribs. "Go on!" I said, teasing him. And then he broke out in the widest grin. He smiled from ear to ear.

My sister and I walked Mum down the aisle. She didn't need bridesmaids, she had her gorgeous grandaughters for that, but she needed someone to give her away. It was the highlight of the day for me, made all the more special by the fact that the three of us knew, deep down, that my sister and I were doing it on behalf of Don.