Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage....

What an AMAZING weekend! I was fortunate enough to spend MY weekend at a FABULOUS wedding on Cape Cod!!! Besides being one of my favorite vacation destinations, Cape Cod holds many special memories for me. My cousins have a house on the Cape and many a fun-filled week was spent splashing in the ocean and Gull Pond. The stories and memories we made would take hours to tell - hours filled with love and the kind of laughter that could bring you to tears! So, you can imagine how special it was to be able to travel to the Cape and share in my cousin's amazing day.

The bride is my baby cousin - she was born when I was eleven years old. And really, the only word you can use to describe her is: loveable.  Ever since she arrived on the scene, she has been nothing but loveable. Now, granted, it did take me a while to get used to the idea of her being around. You see, when my Aunt announced that she had a "surprise" for my cousins and that she would tell them what the surprise was after school one day - I was really convinced that they were getting a puppy. We all wanted a puppy, really, really badly. My brother and I knew that WE would NEVER get one -  my Mom made NO excuses. No dogs for us. But my Aunt and Uncle are a wee bit more adventurous than my parents, so we had VERY high expectations. IMAGINE our disappointment when, the next morning, a very downcast ten and seven year-old climbed into my mom's car for morning carpool and announced that they were, in fact NOT getting a puppy. They were getting a  BABY instead! I won't go into detail about the absolute devastation that my brother and I felt. If they weren't getting a puppy - now we REALLY had no hope of ever getting one. We really didn't care that much about the baby...until she arrived.

I vividly remember the September evening that Mom and Dad loaded me into the car and let me visit my Aunt and the new baby in the hospital. Once I saw that little pink bundle - I was hooked. I will admit to thinking, as we drove to the hospital,  that no matter how cute she was, a puppy would have been WAY more fun. But I had to admit  once I saw that little taco baby all wrapped up- she WAS pretty cute, and I remember thinking that perhaps she would be pretty fun once she could walk and talk. And I was right!!!

So you can imagine what it felt like to watch her walk down the aisle and marry one of Ireland's most WONDERFUL exports on Friday. Her husband is as lovely as she is - they are a perfect pair. You have to have a certain degree of repect and awe for ANY guy who can assimilate into our family. When we all get together, we are loud and rowdy and outspoken and seriously really, really  LOUD... so any guy who can weather a family holiday and then keeps coming back for more - is a keeper. And her man is CERTAINLY a keeper!

The Happy Couple

The priest, who is an old friend of the family, gave a lovely homily about looking to other married couples as an inspiration for marriage. And he mentioned that there are few if any examples of married couples who are saints. Now despite my immediate thoughts of Mary and Joseph as a sainted married couple, there aren't that many more who pop right into my mind. And that is kind of a shame, because marriage can get kind of difficult at times and it does help to have other couples to look to in times of trouble. And in today's society when certain "celebrities" spend MILLIONS of dollars on lavish, over-the-top weddings and then decide, 72 days later that marriage really isn't their "thing", it really IS somewhat difficult to find rock-solid marriages in the spotlight. So, I've been thinking about this since the wedding on Friday. Who do we look to for examples of great marriages? I mean if we look to "celebrities" - the pickings are somewhat slim. Even when we look at our own communities, we see many examples of rocky unions, we hear rumors of who is cheating, who is thinking about cheating, and so on. It's rough out there!

And then it hit me -  examples of great couples are all around us if we only know where to look. So here is MY unsolicited advice for the bride and groom. If you want to look for inspiration for a wonderful marriage, if, when times get tough and you don't know what to do - look at your family photo albums. Look at pictures of your grandparents and your parents. Our grandparents got married right around the Depression. Talk about times being tough! They worked hard, created a family and managed to keep it all together - until death parted them. Things certainly weren't always easy, there were money woes, and sick kids and job woes and really scary things happening in the world they lived in. Yet - they managed to keep it all humming along. When things got tough, they didn't consult an attorney, they didn't find comfort in someone else's arms - they put their heads down and plowed through. When the fire burned, they walked through it, and emerged stronger and forged together on the other side. Our parents didn't always have an easy time of it. They had their share of worries and woes as well. But all you had to do was look at them on Friday night - dressed in their finest, dancing together at your wedding, 40+ years after their own weddings, to see an example of a rock solid marriage. They might not be famous and no one might ever reference them in a wedding speech as a well-known example of marital bliss - YOU will always be able to reference them. And it will be up to YOU and the rest of US to continue to tell the stories of their love affairs and mad-cap adventures. And someday, Leenie and Fiachre, when WE are watching YOUR baby get married, WE will be SURE to tell her all about her Nanny and Poppy and Great grandparents love affairs. We won't have to tell her about yours - because she will live it right along with you.