Every holiday they converged in confusing, noisy crowds. They were rich and poor, black and white and Hispanic, city-dwellers or not, from every walk and in every stage of life. But they knew all about each other and hugged and laughed and talked at each gathering like they’d never been apart.
They scared me to death.
They ignored me, too, at first. But when I’d been to a few of the same special occasions, signifying I was more than just a passing fad, they started paying attention. I dreaded holidays. I would be patted, hugged, pinched, asked personal questions, given unsolicited opinions and expected to remember the names of five or six generations of people who looked and acted nothing alike.
My husband-to-be just smiled when I talked about it, and told me to give it time.
Even though I trusted him, I couldn’t imagine staying in Michigan, within reach of the whole mad horde of them. But when we announced our engagement, I realized I didn’t know the half of it. I learned the hard way that big families aren’t just about holidays.
Suddenly I was an insider. That meant not just Christmas parties and weddings, but a whole host of new duties I’d never heard of before—all of which seemed dreadfully embarrassing.
There were funerals, baby showers, special masses and kids’ birthday parties. Never mind that you didn’t know the deceased or weren’t religious or had never heard of the kid. You were family, so you went. It was as simple as that.
I found myself mumbling and patting the hand of a dying old woman (whom I’d only met once before) in a hospital bed, shedding real tears over the casket of an old friend of the family I’d only ever heard stories about, and holding a newborn (something I’d never done) while I asked, sheepishly, to be reminded of his mother’s name.
Planning the wedding was like nothing I’d expected, either. Somehow I thought that my fiancé and I would do it, but I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Everybody had an opinion, and it wasn’t always phrased as an opinion, either.
I was lectured on religion, seating, clothing and just about every aspect of the ceremony and reception, and also on the zillion “traditions” that had to be in place, many of which I’d never seen or heard, or I secretly thought silly or humiliating. The guest list reached 400, and my family accounted for only thirty of those.
My fiancé was willing to let his relatives do whatever they wanted. “We’ll enjoy it no matter what,” he said.
So, on the wedding day, too far in love to pay attention to my misgivings about the family or my mother’s reminder of long ago, I found myself standing at an altar (the mere idea of a secular wedding nearly caused fatal heart attacks of several older aunts), wearing a beautiful white dress (“But of course you’ll wear white, dear”), and getting ready to swear my fidelity to Our Gigs: my best friend and true love on the one hand; their favored son on the other.
When he said “I do,” a hush fell over the crowd. Every eye turned to me—most of them probing for any sign that what I was about to pledge wasn’t the absolute truth.
I felt my stomach flip and my skin go cold as I realized every person in the church would take what I said next as a solemn oath sworn before them. But I did mean it—I really did—and so I took a deep breath and said it.
“I do.”
Amidst the partying that followed, I most vividly remember slow dancing with my new father-in-law. He held my hands and with misty eyes welcomed me into the family. Him, the gruff, burly man who used to yell like a dragon when I kept his boy out too late.
I also remember seeing lots and lots of cheering people, faces I associated with Christmas. And I remember thinking none of them felt like strangers anymore. Not even the ones I didn’t recognize at all.
My mother was right—I did marry the whole family.
But, instead of being the burden I’d imagined, they were by far the best wedding gift I got. Many of them I still don’t know very well, and some of them will always be a bit unsavory or unscrupulous, but every single one of them—blood relations or not—is family. And they’ve given me new insight into what that means.
It means more than attending funerals or baby showers.
It means there are hundreds of people out there who are bound to me with a sense of love and duty so strong it doesn’t even require knowing each other’s names.
It means those people are there for me and, by extension, for my family.
I might still leave Michigan someday—for a vacation. But I’ll have a whole lot of postcards to send home when I do.
Marie S. Lyle
My Big, Fat Pig Wedding
Bark and I planned a simple, elegant wedding. Since we’d already broken tradition by purchasing a house and moving in together, we also wanted to pay for our own wedding. Our budget was small, however, so we decided to hold the ceremony and reception at home.
The wedding would take place in mid-May. If our Pacific Northwest climate cooperated, we’d exchange vows in our backyard, amid fallen apple and cherry blossoms. If it rained that day, all sixty-five guests would end up crammed in our small living and dining rooms.
More worrisome than the weather, though, was family. Most of them hadn’t met and we didn’t know whether the elder members of my Caucasian family would mingle with my fiancé’s Asian relatives. As far as I knew, my British-born grandfather had never socialized with anyone from China. Also, Bark’s grandfather was only one of several Chinese relatives who didn’t speak English.
Truthfully, not everyone approved of our marriage. I knew we couldn’t hope to change attitudes at one wedding, yet if we could provide opportunities to break down some barriers, then it would be a start.
A few members of Bark’s family were disappointed we wouldn’t serve the customary twelve-course banquet usually presented at Chinese weddings. Bark assured them, though, that the caterer would have plenty of sumptuous dishes.
On the morning of our big day, I anxiously looked at the clouds. As the day progressed, my plans unfolded beautifully, and by noon the house was spotless. Colorful flower baskets hung in our sunroom, red wine waited to be uncorked and Mozart tapes sat near the stereo. All I had to do was finish dressing before the guests arrived at 1:00.
When two cars stopped in front of our house shortly after noon, I was applying makeup in my underwear. Bark went to see what was going on. A minute later he returned.
“Deb, you’ve got to see this.”
I peeked out the bathroom window and watched two unfamiliar Asian men lift a red wooden platform out of the trunk of their car. Lying on the platform was an enormous . . . roasted . . . PIG? My eyes widened in horror. The head was still on the beast, and they were bringing it up the steps to our front door.
Members of Bark’s family emerged from the second car, carrying boiled chickens and roasted ducks. I didn’t look to see if the heads were still attached. I didn’t want to know.
“Where are we going to put the pig?” I asked Bark. “The kitchen counter isn’t big enough and the table’s covered with wine glasses.”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ve already ordered tons of food.”
“I guess they wanted to make sure pork, duck and pig would be served at the wedding,” Bark replied. “Those foods are believed to bring good luck.”
Funny, I wasn’t feeling lucky.
More cars were arriving, I was still in my underwear and my house was being overtaken by a fat, crispy, brown pig. What was I supposed to do? Hand everyone a bib and tell them to chow down? I hadn’t even rented finger-bowls. I finished dressing quickly.
The pig wound up on our kitchen floor, surrounded by newspapers and pieces of cardboard. At this point, I desperately wanted a soothing cup of tea, but the porker was blocking access to my kettle.
More guests arrived, commenting on the delicious odor permeating the house. It didn’t take them long to discover the uninvited guest on my floor. In fact, the pig rapidly became a conversation piece.
At 2:00, the ceremony began. As we were pron
ounced man and wife, the sun broke through and the afternoon grew warm, but few people stayed in the blossom-carpeted outdoors. They all went inside . . . to see the pig.
One of Bark’s relatives, a butcher by profession, used his meat cleavers to cut with an expertise that had guests from both sides of the family spellbound. And pig grease splattered my once-spotless floor.
Business associates, friends and more relatives drifted to the kitchen to watch. As the meat was carved into bite-sized pieces and transferred onto aluminum plates, people smiled and began chatting with one another. By the time the butcher finished, the caterers arrived and our dining room was soon overflowing with food and budding friendships.
The new camaraderie gathered momentum all afternoon. Over piles of succulent pork, our accepting families were talking and laughing with one another like—old friends.
I guess that big fat pig brought good luck after all.
Debra Purdy Kong
Budget wedding photos
CLOSE TO HOME ©John McPherson. Reprinted by permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.
What’s So Funny?
He who laughs, lasts.
Mary Pettibone Poole
It was a beautiful wedding. The dresses, the candles, the flowers—especially the flowers. They were wonderful. The candle glow and smell of roses heightened the intensity of the ceremony.
“And do you, Peggy, take this man . . .” the pastor began.
Yes of course I do. He’s sweet and gorgeous and . . .
“I do,” I said.
“And do you, Dickey, take this woman, Peggy . . .”
Yes, of course he does.
“Please kneel. Father, we ask your special blessing on this husband and this wife,” the pastor continued.
Wait, is someone giggling?
“Bless their union . . .”
Who is giggling?
It’s his mother! Why is she laughing? What does she know that I don’t?
“And all of us gathered here promise to offer support . . .”
Now his mother’s laughing out loud. And so is everyone else. Wait! May I ask a question before we continue?
“I now introduce Mr. and Mrs. . . . ,” the pastor concluded, although he seemed a little confused, too.
They’re still laughing.
But the music swelled and this man I was no longer sure of whisked me out of the church.
“Wow!” I said with a catch in my throat. “They all seemed to enjoy the service.” I turned to Dickey, fishing for an explanation.
Dickey had a look of suspicion on his face as he leaned against the wall. He lifted one shoe and then the other.
“My little sister! I’m going to get her!” he groaned, shaking his head. Then he showed me the bottom of his shoes.
Written in big red letters were the words “HELP ME!”
Peggy Purser Freeman
10
TIMELESS
WISDOM
Even for two people who are very much in love, learning to live together is full of challenges. How comforting it is to discover that the conflicts we face are not unique to our own relationship!
Marilyn McCoo
singer, actress, TV host,
married thirty-four years
His ’n’ Hers
People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you’ll feel comfortable wearing. Allow for room to grow.
Erma Bombeck
A marriage merges two lives, two hearts and two minds—that’s the easy part. What people don’t tell you is that marriage also merges two sets of household stuff— and that’s where it gets tricky.
Take Person A, who has been trekking through life, collecting his own set of stuff for many years. Now add him to Person B, who also has her own set of perfectly good stuff. What you end up with is a lot of duplicated, uncoordinated, mismatched stuff . . . and the overwhelming need for a garage sale.
So that’s exactly what my new husband Tom and I decided to do. And for about five minutes, we were as cute and nauseating as we could be about it.
“Ah, our first garage sale together,” we cooed. We’d get up early. We’d buy doughnuts. We’d sit in lawn chairs and collect our money in a shoebox. It would be great. I ran the ad in the newspaper. Tom bought the signs pointing people to our driveway. All that was left to do was collect our stuff, price it and pile it on a card table. Easy enough.
Obviously, his things deserved prime billing in the driveway. That hulking artificial plant was ugly enough to scare the cat. We didn’t need stereo speakers bigger than a foreign car. And then, there was the floor lamp with its glass-table tutu.
But, according to him, this was his good stuff.
And he showed no appreciation for my own good stuff. He wanted to sell my futon two-seater even after I explained it was the first piece of furniture I bought on my own . . . and I’d studied for final exams on this very couch for four years straight . . . and I actually owed my college education to the comfort of this benevolent couch.
He said it was “ugly.” Obviously, one person’s “ugly” is another person’s “character.”
After a few rounds, we finally came up with a mutually acceptable pile of stuff that would be sold come sun-up, but that was only half the battle.
Pricing is where things really got hairy. I hated to tell him that his garage sale assets had a net worth of about 75 cents. So we each priced our own things, went to bed, and waited for daybreak and the first customer.
We didn’t have to wait long. Garage sale vultures didn’t wait for daybreak; they circled their prey in the wee hours of the morning, waiting for the sun and the garage door to rise. Then they sprang from their cars and swooped up the drive.
These were not your average shoppers. They were the Green Berets of garage sales, picking off a bargain from blocks away. What’s worse, they were also the Navy Seals of negotiating. We held strong during the first hour or so. There was no way we could accept $2 for a perfectly good electric can opener. No way. But as the morning wore on and the doughnuts ran out, we started to weaken.
“How much for your husband’s neckties?”
“I’ll take $1 for the entire box of them—if you get them out of here before he gets back from the bathroom,” I said.
Sold.
When my back was turned, Tom sold my bookcase for $5. A large, perfectly good piece of furniture. And he let it go for less than the cost of a meal at Arby’s. It was his revenge for the pair of mammoth stereo speakers I “accidentally” sold for $30 when he really wanted $30 apiece.
Hmmm. After a few hours, we realized everything we didn’t sell would have to be re-boxed—and brought back into the house. So, in the final hour, we slashed prices and agreed to throw in the card table if someone would just take the stuff away.
At noon, we gathered the sale scraps and hauled it to a charity drop-off. We used some of our proceeds to pay for lunch and then, satisfied, returned home for a long nap. We’d passed a marital milestone: our first garage sale.
Now, we need to agree how to redecorate our house. Sounds easy enough. . . .
Gwen Rockwood
Unbeknownst to Patty, Scott had registered them for wedding gifts at The Sportsman’s Superstore.
CLOSE TO HOME ©John McPherson. Reprinted by permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.
The First Freeze
There is no joy in life like the joy of sharing.
Billy Graham
“I think we should. What do you think?”
“Maybe,” I replied to my husband of less than four months. “Yes . . . no,” I waffled in hesitation. “What do you think?”
Nervous giggles broke out as we paid our restaurant tab and debated about doing the unthinkable—jumping in to help a desperately understaffed diner in the midst of the Georgia Ice Storm of 2000.
It was Sunday morning and church was cancelled. We realized t
his only after braving the roads and marveling at how bright and clean our Atlanta suburb looked covered in ice. This was our first winter storm together, making the experience all the more heady.
Luke and I were caught up in “firsts” these days. We were in our first home, first year of marriage, and were discovering firsts about one another daily. He became acquainted with the laundry bin. I learned to buy new things at the grocery.
Our big joke surfaced each night as we got ready for bed. Marriage was like a slumber party because neither of us had to go home at the end of the night. We relished our newfound freedom as a married couple.
The late January ice storm took everyone by surprise. Even the meteorologists were caught off guard. We thought it was romantic—another first.
Since church was called off, our attention quickly turned to our growling stomachs. Luke and I went to find breakfast only to realize power was out everywhere. We happened upon a new place, noticing the neon “Open” sign was lit up. Luke eased our car into the 78 Diner; we were happy to be off the icy roads and out of the cold.
The renovated Denny’s was practically empty. We found a booth and placed our order. Slowly the diner filled up to capacity. The wait staff, a team of brothers from Crete, scurried to keep up with the mob of customers.
That’s when Luke posed the question, “Why don’t we jump in and help?”
We bantered back and forth the pros and cons of pitching in. It is important to note neither one of us had ever waited tables.
As we finished paying the bill I got the nerve up to ask one of the brothers if we could assist. He handed us order booklets and scurried toward the kitchen while we looked at each other in disbelief and started to fill drink orders.
The diner became a bustling madhouse. The coffeepot was a bottomless pit and the cook (a Cretan cousin) was so overwhelmed by all the orders he was rendered nearly helpless.
Chicken Soup for the Bride's Soul Page 21