Nashville or Bust

Day + 27: Silver

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary.

When I sit down and think about all the things I can think about… all the memories… well, it gets a little overwhelming.

But when I focus on where we were and what we were doing 25 years ago, there is one particular moment of the ceremony that I remember with such vivid clarity.

It was this very moment. We were told to turn, face each other and join hands. We were in the chapel of the convent on my high school campus and we were standing there, exposed, in front of our families, friends, a priest and a monsignor, a bevy of nuns in the choir loft and really the world. It got very quiet and I realized with my heart thump, thump, thumping, that there was one thing I really, really wanted to do…

I wanted to push his glasses up.

Dave and I were holding hands tightly and as we squeezed, his glasses began to slip. What the heck was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to let go because I was convinced that if I did, the super Wonder Twin powers we were conjuring up at that very moment wouldn’t take and we’d be in trouble someday. (Seriously.)

But those glasses. Those glasses. They were slipping.

The priest had us repeating after him and I remember that. I remember Pachelbel’s Cannon in D being played by the string quartet behind us. All lovely, really, but those glasses! My word… they were going to fall off his face. And he looked a little uncomfortable.

All I really wanted to do was gently push them back up into place. But I couldn’t let go.

Twenty-five years later… the older me looks back at the younger me and wonders, with all I know now, would I take that chance and let go for a second to give a little comfort, show a little tenderness? Is it because I didn’t let go that I’ve learned how to be kinder and more compassionate, to both give and accept love? To know that sometimes you really do just need to hold on?

Like many other mysteries, the world will never know…

October 6, 2015 - Posted by daveandjacqui | Dave, Everyday