Twenty

Today is my twentieth wedding anniversary. My mother and father were wed forty-nine years, so potentially this is not even the halfway mark; although one never knows what Fate has in store. My wife has been around for all the best parts of my life, but also all of the hardest parts. Life has plenty of those, but the good parts can be good indeed.

Our wedding album looks different to me now. At the time I remember being annoyed by all the pictures for which they made us pose, and later I used to find the book fun to look at to remember the pleasure of the day. This year I am suddenly struck by how many of the attendees are no longer with us. Dad is gone and my uncle; my wife's mother and father and sister; my sister is still alive, but the boyfriend she brought to the wedding is gone. If we were to reassemble the wedding party it would be rather hollow, although children in the photos -- and others who have come along since -- are now young adults.

My best man was an Evangelical Marine, and the other two groomsmen were a Quaker who converted to Judaism after he learned his family had changed their names to hide their Jewishness when they immigrated, and a Scottish-American who had converted to Islam to escape alcoholism (this was before 9/11, remember). It was a dry wedding, as rural Georgia on a Sunday was required to be.

Oddly enough my Best Man and my wife's Matron of Honor are the only two of the wedding party we don't still talk with at least occasionally. Somehow the ones who seemed closest at the time are the ones who fell off.

The Havamal says to praise the day at evening, a weapon when proved, ice when crossed, and ale when it has been drunk. By that standard I can only say that the first twenty years were worthy. For twenty years, in hard times and in good ones, it was well.