As I lay bruised and bleeding just 45 minutes before my son Tim’s wedding last Saturday, I couldn’t help but take it as a sign. THE WEDDING was beautiful.
God has never talked to me — and wouldn’t you know it if He did, it came as a reprimand — but at that point the thought came to me, “Susan, this is not about you.”
Truth is, I couldn’t wait to get dolled up for the big affair. I pulled out all the stops: new dress, manicured nails, lots of bling. I had been looking forward to this day for months for how I would look.
Yes, yes, the bride, too. We’d had fun pulling together what Violeta would wear on various occasions throughout the wedding weekend. We’d had a girls’ day complete with manicures, lunch and shopping.
After the women in the wedding party had their hair done Saturday afternoon, we gathered at my daughter Louise’s house in Lawrence to relax and pull ourselves together before the 6 p.m. wedding.
Finishing the last touches from an upstairs bedroom, I was called to come down and help Violeta secure her corseted top.
“I’m coming,” I yelled down the stairs.
I quickly grabbed my suitcase, bath towel, spare hangers, a coffee cup, and cell phone — not wanting to make two trips — and managed maybe two steps before I lost my footing and fell the length of the steep wooden stairway.
I’m thinking the suitcase and towel helped break the fall. Bruising and scrapes indicate my lower back, the back of my head and my shins bore the brunt of the fall. For the life of me, I can’t remember how I fell. But my granddaughter Olive’s favorite term, “tumble bumble” suffices.
My cousin, a nurse, had me lay still as she assessed the damage — which is when I heard the admonition from the great beyond. This day is Tim and Violeta’s, not yours. I smiled and nodded in recognition of the sage advice.
In short order I was bandaged and driving us all to the church.
I still get a little shaky thinking what might have been. And I still think my dress was perfect, now mostly because it was three-quarters length and covered a quickly swelling left knee as well as my patched up legs.
Tim and Violeta met several years back while he was serving in the Peace Corps in El Salvador. With only two months left of his 27-month stint, they met. I can’t say I was thrilled, knowing the trials of a long-distance relationship much less the cultural differences to bridge.
But they stuck it out.
“I can safely say that every day away from you was a complete affirmation of how much I loved you,” Violeta said in her vows.
She got Tim.
“I wish to be always your support to fight for your ideals and your dreams. … I promise not to be indifferent to the pain of the world around us and to not lose sight that we can make a difference and thus, provide a better future for our children and to instill in them a spark of hope.”
And Tim understands what a sacrifice Violeta is making by leaving her family, friends, and country to begin life here in the United States.
“To visit El Salvador often, to have its people in our hearts, to have our future family always connected to its culture, to cultivate and share friendship between our two countries and families, I promise.”
A beautiful lesson, painfully learned
