The Kleenex was for Jordan. Or maybe Peter. I always tuck in a few Kleenex or a lace hanky just inside the pocket of my wedding book so that if the bride or groom begin to drip tears during the vows, I can quietly slip them a tissue. But this time, the bride was my niece, and I was the one mopping the mascara smears off of my own face. Even though I was the officiant, I could not look at her, a brilliant 30-year old chemist, without thinking of snuggling the 4 month old version of her in a Santa Suit on her first Christmas.

The nuptials took place at a ranch in Northern California. And I would need more hankies. Jordan’s father has been absent from her life for almost a decade. That could have felt awkward, but it didn’t. Because family are those people who stand beside you and hold you up through the inevitable storms and Kevin and Paul became family back when Jordan was a preteen. Kevin and Paul began as neighbors but were eventually claimed as “Uncles.” But on the day of the rehearsal, I saw Jordan slip over to Kevin and whisper. They were out of some bar supplies at the ranch and she wondered if he could replenish. It was so mundane but in that moment I realized that he was for her as much of a doting Dad as one could be without being blood.

And then came the bride and groom’s first dance. Traditionally the groom then dances with his mother and the bride her father. But my brave sister beamed with joy as she took her daughter’s hand and began to dance the mother/daughter dance. Their song had been decided in tandem. It was Carole King’s song written with her daughter for the TV show Gilmore Girls:

“Loving you the way I do,
I know we’re gonna make it through,
And I would go, to the ends of the earth
’Cause darling to me that’s what your worth”

Sometimes the tears of joy are reminders that life need not be perfect in order to be whole, need not be traditional in order to be sacred. God has a way of reminding us that love always wins.

As the poet Maya Angelou put it:

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Grace and Peace,

Carla