American Irish: June 2012

Sunday, June 3, 2012

What A Beautiful Day

Yesterday we went to Gareths cousins wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and they're a lovely couple. The men, including my Gareth, looked dashing in their suits. Of course he looked even better when I helped him out of that suit, but that is another story altogether now isn't it.

After my marriage to Gareth in South Africa, I've never once wished we had done it any other way. I'll always remember the dust of the dirt road we walked down from our hotel to the marriage license place, the irritating flies and the scorching sun. I remember continously wiping beads of sweat off our faces, caused not only from the heat, but also from the nervousness of standing in front of strangers and expressing a desire to be together for life. I remember we each had a photo of our parents that we carried in our wallets and we took them out and stuck them in our shirt pockets so we had a little piece of our families with us.

As I watched Gareth dancing with the bride, it suddenly occured to me, that we had never had a wedding dance (nor a honeymoon) and don't really have a couples song. In passing, I mentioned this to Gareth and we started joking around throughout the day about what our wedding song would have been. I teased him that it would have been Robert Plants "Doctor, Doctor, give me the news" and he teased me that he would have chosen Westlifes "Queen of my heart" to which he got punched in the arm.

The joking on songs continued for awhile and then was forgotten. It was a long day of fun and when we arrived home I was more than ready to kick my shoes off and strip out of the suit. But Gareth stopped me and said "Uh Ah, not yet." I didn't know what he was talking about, so I just looked at him with a confused look on my face.

He started rooting through some stuff and then he found this CD and started laughing. He told me to come over to him by the stereo and he told me that after he first met me he couldn't stop thinking about me when I wasn't around. Which I found really sweet because he had never told me that. He said he did something back then that he had never done before and that he made a mixed tape of love songs that made him think of me.

As we both started laughing, he put the CD in the player and said, "I don't know if any of these songs will ever be 'our song', but can I have this dance?" I don't think either one of us could have had bigger smiles on our faces as we took each other into our arms and started to dance. So there, with only our cat as a witness we had our long lost wedding dance.

I'm happy for anyone who finds love they feel is true enough to stand amongst family and friends and express a desire to show the commitment they wish to make with each other for what is supposed to be the rest of their lives.

Yet I can't help but feel sad everytime I go to a wedding knowing there are still people around the world who can't make such a public display of their love and affection in a legal manner. Two people choosing to share a commited loving relationship, no matter their race or gender, can only strengthen mankind, not destroy it.