My parents’ House is a flurry of activity, and my daughter and I, a bridesmaid and flower girl, are at the center of the excitement.  Weddings are always special occasions, but this one is particularly meaningful for me, because the groom is my baby brother.

We have had our troubles, he and I, borne of our eight year age difference, our vastly different personalities, and the general shortage of patience siblings often seem to have for each other.  But we have kept working on our relationship, often too angry to speak to each other, but too attached to cut each other out.  A complicated journey it has been, full of mistakes that we are learning to forgive each other for.  Time, if it doesn’t heal all wounds, at least provides the opportunity for two children to grow up, and gain a new perspective on their wounds, and on each other.  A necessary blessing.

On Saturday, we will celebrate his marriage to a spectacular young woman, the union of a couple who first found romance and then created partnership, and a home.  They are so absolutely right for each other that it seems impossible that she hasn’t always been a part of our family, with her blonde curls and quiet manner, her dignity and beauty, her commonsense.  We all adore her, and somehow, since she has come into our lives, our family circle seems complete.

The  next few days will be a flurry of chiffon dresses and choosing makeup colors, of flower bouquets and little silver shoes with bows, of irrepressible groomsman descending to tease the living daylights out of the delighted groom and make damn sure the reception is every bit the raucous party that it should be.

But there are quiet moments to be savored, too, moments to remember my own wedding, thirteen Years Ago now, to think of all the ways my own relationship has deepened with hardship, with parenthood, with houses and cars and workaday life, and to appreciate the soft-spoken academic I chose all those years ago, when I was just 22, almost as if it was written in the stars, because my heart was suddenly his and was never going to belong to me, or anyone else, ever again.

And there are moments to appreciate my brother, once a swaddled infant with a fuzzy hair who gazed curiously up at me with navy blue eyes, confused because I looked so much like his mama but was in fact a new person in his life, then a toddler who crawled around shirtless on hot summer days when our house didn’t have air conditioning, his downy baby hair curling at the nape of his neck.  Time marched on, and suddenly he is 30, towering over me at 6’2″, making sure I think all the details of his tux are just so.  Indeed they are, I think, my beautiful brother.  The tux matters little; the gift to your bride is you.

To everything there is a season, it is written in Ecclesiates, and a time for every activity under the heaven…A time to weep, and a time laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.   So let us laugh, and let us celebrate, and let us dance, yes, let us dance, for love.

Please join me in honoring the marriage of Benjamin Michael John and Sarah Lindsey on Saturday, October 15, 2016.