Weddings

I love weddings.

I love weddings for several reasons: they are such a great gathering of all kinds of weird, often intoxicated relatives, half of whom you really don't know because they are someone else's relatives. And they are there for a happy occasion. They are kissing and dancing and eating and drinking, and full of hope.

The wedding itself is a primitive leap of faith. It underscores how people are still willing to face challenges, and over-come the odds and be in love and want, for the most part, to have children.

Today we left our week away early to take my father-in-law, who will be 94 soon, to the wedding of one of his younger nephews, who is 45. It was a great wedding of Jewish and Italian families. They had both a priest and a rabbi, who were certainly both gay. They were also exuberant and effusive. They belted out their prayers and songs and blessings. They served wine and waved incense, broke bread and broke glasses. They had fat bellies and beached blond hair and were probably secretly married to each other.

Since the bride and groom were in their forties, the crowd was pretty senior, so the bodies that were clutching, swaying and gyrating to the music were a bit more gray, wrinkled and gnarled than most, but that made it all the more meaningful as they ignored the effects of osteo-arthritis and got out on the floor to shimmy in celebration that the world will continue with some sort of attempt at civilization even after they are gone.

The better irony is that fifty miles away in a different part of the state one of my long-term, more anxious clients was also getting married. This was a great kid who first came to me because he was having panic attacks working at the drive-though window of Berger King. Now, eight years later, with a Master's Degree, a good job and what seems like a caring, stable relationship, he too is doing whatever ethnic dances his tradition offers, basking the the glow of his banker father and schizophrenic mother, and eagerly joining the ranks of the happy and hopeful who believe that life is worth living and creating. He, who for years was so worried that no one could love him, and that he could never speak above a whisper, and that he would never, ever get laid, is full of life and hope.

One can only admire the foolishness, join in, be joyful and dance.