The groom

As a little girl I dreamed of my wedding day.  A day full of flowers and a white dress, a beautiful shimmering white dress.  A man in a black tuxedo, waiting for me at the end of the aisle.  A father on my arm. A warm day.  A day of excitement and love. A day to remember for always. The beginning of a new life.
So every wedding I went to, I watched and waited for her to appear at the back of the church. Waiting... glowing... beginning her "float" down the aisle.  No one actually walks down the aisle on their wedding day - they float.  You didn't know that?  This is common knowledge to young girls :)
I would stare at the back of the church, first a bridesmaid, and then another, and then a glimmer of white from around a corner, or down a hall, through a door or across a ranch's graveled drive, and then she was there. I would gaze at her in awe.  I would imagine myself in the white dress, making my way down the aisle, smiling, glowing, sparkling...  Even after I was married, I still looked for the bride.  What does her dress look like?  What flowers did she choose to carry?  How will her hair be done?

Several saturdays ago, as I sat in the church waiting for the ceremony to begin, my eyes wandered not to the back of the church, but to the front.  In the past I would only look at the groom when the panorama of my vision included the groom in addition to the bride.  However, this time was different. Maybe it is due to the fact that my wedding day seems like eons ago, and my focus has changed over the past few years... A focus from girls - to boys.  Maybe it was the addition of our third son, or maybe the absence of a daughter, or that when asked what the "high" of his day was, our second son said, "I got to sit by my girlfriend" (the one with the heart on her backpack), or maybe just because... I'm not sure what had me looking for the groom.  In the past, he has somehow just sprung up from the floor.  I never watched him make his entrance.  For those of you wondering, he actually walked out with the minister.  Maybe this is customary... I honestly don't know, because this is literally the very first time I have looked to the front of the church, and watched for the groom.

I don't typically cry at weddings.  Sometimes a hallmark commercial can get me choked up, so I'm not sure why weddings don't have me weeping into my sleeve, but they don't.  That saturday, I watched a young man, maybe 23 or so, wait for his bride to round the corner with her father by her side. He smiled nervously, he shifted his weight quickly, he fidgeted with his hands, and he fixed his gaze at the end of the aisle.  He was standing tall, and he was handsome, but I could see him for a fleeting moment as his mom may have seen him... I could see him when he was 5, waving goodbye to her as he walked into kindergarten... I could see his face as he turned around after his first strike out in little league... I could see his grin from ear to ear when he opened his favorite Christmas gift... I could hear him ask for one more story at bedtime, and look at her with those eyes... She knows the eyes, the eyes she just can't say no to... the same eyes that are now fixed on his bride... floating down the aisle towards him.  I could see him if only in my mind, as his mother might have seen him a thousand times in a thousand memories prior to that day... And I cried.  I cried because I had never really thought about it before. I had never really thought about all of the moments that led up to that day. I had never really thought about one of my sons, ready for that day. The day that he was mature enough to take someone as his bride, to take care of her, to provide for her... 

Sigh... 

The wildness and silliness of my boys keeps me on my toes, stresses me out and brightens my days.  It is good to be reminded that even though they are young now, I am raising men.  Sooner than I realize, they will need to provide for someone else, they will need to have strength of character and an understanding of how to treat the beautiful white glimmer at the other end of the aisle.  This is a noble calling. I thank God everyday for my boys, and I pray that I would be reminded - in between diaper changes, mud on my carpet, and balls flung at my head, that a noble calling is before me.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

"There is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son

that transcends all other affections of the heart."

Washington Irving