FROM the moment Maggie stepped into
the grassy wedding aisle until we crossed back over the same place, those were
the happiest, most blissful moments of my life right up until our daughter was
born. No doubt could stand in our glory, no fear dared to look at us. You could
have seen our joy from space, shooting through the atmosphere like a rocket
shooting miles of silly string behind it. There was such a happy tractor beam
from her eyes to mine it’s a wonder that anyone lived through the ceremony without
being torn apart. Armageddon could have come and gone and a holy bubble would
have kept us safe. There is a moment just before the cocoon breaks open and
releases its prize in which the shell is almost as beautiful as the contents
within. Maggie walking up the grass, down the row made by pretty folding
chairs, our eyes locked, had the gods made war on a nearby grassy knoll they
would have laid down their weapons in awe and respect at the great good thing
happening between us. Beauty in all the languages of every tongue rested on her
like a raiment of light, and I know that in her eyes I was a prince. I felt
like one. I heard my father, my best man, sniffing behind me, and I would have
cried if the tears hadn’t been so afraid of being seared away instantly. Maggie’s
father lumbered like a wounded elephant, ponderous and proud but knowing that
his most precious treasure would soon be departed, would soon be gone, would
soon be lost to him forever. Maggie’s smile never faltered. God cocooned the
area around us and our guests to shield us from the July Georgia heat, and the
temperature dropped ten degrees, a breeze stirred the long fingers of the
willows behind us, and the names of all our children were written in their
flittering. We grinned like idiots, like fools, like two people who have no
right to be so lucky. When my faith in God trembles, I remember that moment,
and I know. I just know. There isn’t that much luck in the world to deliver so
good and right a woman to so undeserving a man as myself. So I pray and almost
always start with thanks. Thank you for my wife, and now thank you for my
daughter. I understand the heavy steps of my father-in-law, now. After my
daughter was born, I loved him more than I could have thought possible. My own
steps… The day is too far away. Our daughter was in those vows, our whole life
was in our eyes, in those words, in those first steps through the grass as man
and woman, wife and husband, sealed and spoken for and blessed more than could
ever be dreamed of. And I thank you, and I thank you, and I thank you some more
Lord. I will never be done thanking you.
