A Wedding Speech
In a joyous celebration on the Pacific Ocean, my eldest daughter got married November 19th. Just to keep these thoughts someplace I can find them, I’m printing my speech to the couple, Isabelle and Jay, here; forgive the directly personal stuff.
We all know this wedding language of gaining a son or daughter - but these new children are grownups when they show up.
We see and cherish Jay’s sensitive intelligence, his surprisingly deep well of patience. How funny he is. But we don’t know what he looked like on his first day of school. We don’t know what he wanted in his lunchbox. We have no memories of his first wobbly bike ride without training wheels, or snow-plowing stiffly down his first Blue Square.
We know the fine man Jay grew into, but it is impossible for us to see this lovely guy through the lens of his childhood the way only his family can.
So, I’m going to catch the Bhayanis up on Isabelle. I’m going to tell three childhood stories that map the beautiful young woman we see today.
Story 1: Isabelle was about two and a half; I was pushing her in a stroller through a neighborhood, and we started to pass a yard with a bunch of children’s toys left out. Izzy immediately started climbing out of the stroller wanting to run across the yard and play with the toys. I had to struggle to keep her in, and finally said to her, “Izzy, if you lived in this house would you want some strange child you didn’t know run into the yard to play with your toys?” She was quiet for a little bit, and said, “YES!” Stupid adult question; correct answer.
Number 2: We were those parents who were not going to let their child watch television, and then we became those parents who would only let their children watch PUBLIC television. The VERY FIRST TIME I let Izzy watch PBS, she was about 5, and Georgia would have been 2. Izzy was watching Arthur, which I just assumed was educational, progressive, non-violent, inclusive, healthy children’s programming. After about ten minutes Izzy came running to me, wailing in distressed confusion “Mommy! Arthur doesn’t like his little sister??? How could you not like your little sister?” A heartbreaking loss of innocence, thank you, PBS.
Number 3: THE SONG. A simple country song we all know that many parents sing to their babies and toddlers. I swear, Isabelle could not even talk but she understood the words, and they were unbearable to her - introducing her to grief before she could even say why. And it stayed with her. At six years old she loved her ballet class, skipping into it each week until the end of the season, when she started leaving 3/4 through class, her cheeks wet with silent tears. After the three weeks of this the teacher came out with her to say to me - , “I have no idea why she is leaving, she loves this class! And we just started practicing for our recital!”
“Ooooh,” I said, “and what are you dancing to?” The SONG.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…Please don’t take my sunshine away.”
Childhood is truly the singular territory of parents - only parents hold the moments that shaped our children, or moments in which our children revealed themselves to us - so in a way we are here today to celebrate all that childhood behind Isabelle and Jay, who have now become wife and husband. Here’s to them.
