According to Jordan Cooper: “If you’re over 65 and can still remember these 12 life events, your mind is in remarkable shape.” We have tackled the 3 life events in previous posts.
We are now in #4: YOUR WEDDING DAY OR A CELEBRATION THAT CHANGED YOUR CIRCLE
“Maybe it wasn’t a wedding. Maybe it was the day a new grandchild arrived, or a reunion where everyone finally came home. If you can recall the song, the toast, the way someone’s voice cracked at the end of a sentence, you’re showing off your brain’s ability to bind PEOPLE + EMOTION + PLACE into one durable file. Bonus points if you remember what went wrong (there’s always something) and how folks rallied.”
January 25, 1997: Friends and relatives came from near and far to witness the Once-In-A-Lifetime Event that nobody thought possible—my wedding! It was like a Grand Reunion like no other. Normally, the death of a dearly beloved brings members of the family and long-lost friends together in the wake. In this case however, I was still breathing and very much alive.
I will start with what went wrong. The invitation specified 3:30 PM. At 4 PM, my “Prince Charming” called me. He sounded very nervous. He asked me why I was still home. The church was already filled with guests he didn’t know. Quite understandable because out of the 250 guests, he only had 25.
A few days before the wedding, we had a terrible fight. At the height of my rage and anger, I called the wedding off. After all the hullabalou, we reconciled but a reasonable doubt clouded my mind. So I instructed him to go the Parish Office as soon as he arrived at the church and call me. I wanted to be sure that he was already there when I show up in my eye-popping body-hugging wedding dress.
Apparently, he forgot about our deal. He thought I changed my mind of marrying him because I was never late of our scheduled appointments. When the official photographer knew that we were finally leaving, he summoned the parents of the bride. That’s when I realized that Tatay already left ahead of us. Nanay told me he was excited to entertain his own set of friends in the church. So Tatay was missing in the video and photoshoot of his only daughter’s pre-wedding documentation.
I requested our accompanist/vocalist to sing “Sa Iyo Lamang” as our Wedding Song. Back then, I didn’t know that it was actually a Funeral Song.
Both my husband’s father and mother cried a river during the wedding. I vividly remember his mother talking to Nanay in between sobs with her trembling voice “siya ang pinakamabait sa mga anak ko.” (He is the nicest among my children) His father was also talking to Tatay with the same exact words in his own cracked voice. Can somebody enlighten me why the parents of the groom were the ones weeping and not the parents of the bride?
In the wedding reception, my godson Macky and I belted out Bon Jovi’s tear-jerking song “I’ll be there for you”. Thank God my son Gio was not yet alive during that tine. Otherwise, he would have hidden himself under the table until everybody was gone. But of course, the guests didn’t mind. They saw how happy I was that a little damage to their eardrums won’t hurt that much.
To be continued . . .
