Six September/White Wedding

Two September I headed east from California, hell-bent for Colorado, my birthplace and home to my five adult Children, their Children and the Child’s Child. Kathy, riding shotgun, chatting and sharing the driving, made this a much more enjoyable road trip than the one I did by myself a few months ago when I came to live with her in this sunset place, California. We had plenty to talk about too. We were to be married Six September at DiCicco’s Restaurant in Olde Downtown Arvada.

Kathy spent months researching and coordinating with my daughters to create a memorable event of our wedding. I learned that a wedding is much like a birthing, gender-wise. A man can say what he wants but basically, if he has his head on straight, he stands where he’s told while the woman does all the work, endures the pain and deep wonderment and responsibility of the event. They did well, these sweet ladies of mine. Kathy and I stood in a tall room beneath a flowered arch decorated by my daughters and exchanged vows we had written and agreed on ourselves (lots of mind wrestling there). Marlys Duggan, a fine former business associate and new friend of mine, did a wonderful job as officiant of the ceremony.

Kathy and I danced and kissed, shared the cake, sipped and spilled champagne with friends and loved ones, hers and mine, now ours. The event went off without a hitch except, of course, the one intended. The Circle of Family in that tall square room began with my one-year-old Great-GrandDaughter, Jessa. Hand in hand, ecstatic teary eye to eye, it extended to meet with our Family, Friends, and Children, then complete with our parents, those lovely and curiously flawed People who created Kathy and me. Gone from this life, all four were represented by photographs on the sign-in table. I like to think they were watching us, they are watching us. I know they are Sasha and alive in my heart and Spirit.

Eight September Kathy and I registered our marriage license/certificate in county Jefferson, state of Colorado. We met my Children for lunch at On the Border, a Mexican restaurant at Denver West. It very nearly broke my heart when it came time to hug and kiss them goodbye outside on the concrete sidewalk amongst parked cars and traffic, traffic, others going by and by. I hid behind the round dark holes of my sunglasses (sneaky glasses, my youngest son, Zedidiah, called them a dozen or so years ago when I first put them on). I wept in the parking lot in the secure cell of Kathy’s car. She touched my shoulder, the only assurance I needed that I was doing the right thing, that which must be done. Words would have gotten in the way.

Difficult, to put it mildly, mounting I-25 North, I-80 West, 395 and 44 North and West to our home in California. The woman I love beside me made it possible, gave me the strength, to drive away from my Colorado home and the beautiful Spirits there. As the miles ticked by, 1300 of them, I imagined Kathy and I were pioneers, beating a path for loved ones to follow, that it might be easier for them to visit, return and revisit. Kathy is working and I am writing novels, singing, wrestling with emotions and words, characters more impatient than myself (if that is possible). It will never feel right, moving away from my Children, for an hour, a day, a year, a moment. Life is a wheel; it goes round and round and round and round. We are strong, always together in our hearts. We cannot and will not be separated. Always, forever, my background conversation, mantra is, “Daddy’s coming home.” And one day soon, he’s bringing the bride of his life with him.

“You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker played as Kathy walked up the aisle toward me. After the ceremony, arm in arm, we walked the path back, exultant, ecstatic, accompanied by the voice of Billy Idol. That bad boy got it right. It was a nice day for a white wedding, a nice day to start again.