Four Years of Hard Rain

It rained on my wedding day. Internally I groaned because that was the wrong script. Like most girls, I'd dreamt about that day for a long time. In those dreams, I wore a gleaming white dress over-burdened with tulle and I posed magnificently with a throng of coquettish bridesmaids. There were tweeting birds, and possibly a harp, and definitely, most definitely, a bright yellow sun pasted delicately to a clear, cerulean sky. The groom in those dreams was always a blur, an afterthought. But whoever that man was he was supposed to be powerful enough to control the whims of the sky, or maybe that was God's job. I don't know.

When I woke up to the dreary greyness of that soul-tethering day, I held every hope in my heart that something golden would still arrive and rescue my little girl dreams, bring them back to me wrapped in rainbow paper on the beaks of tweeting birds. But the moment arrived when I realized that rain was going to keep right on at it's falling. So I did the only thing I could; I grew up and faced the rain.

Rassles wrote a great post last week about her passive, weak, piece of shit umbrella. I commented to her that I did away with umbrellas a while ago. That now, I just face the rain. Well, I think my wedding day was the day I learned that I could do that. I felt the rain. I felt for sure in my heart that I needed that rain the way I needed to feel the kicks of my baby girl 5 months new and strong in my womb. That rain was our baptism, symbolic of the tears of joy and sorrow we would be facing in the days ahead.

My bridal gown wasn't the one I envisioned in my dreams. I had to select a dress that would accomodate my ever-expanding belly. I had to accept the fact that I'd look like a marshmallow in all my photos. And when Todd saw me in my bridal gown before the wedding, it wasn't magic; It was real. I was holding my 9 month old niece in my arms as she wailed loudly in my ear. Todd walked in the room and said...something. And I said, "What?" So romantic. And then 5 months later, he held our crying newborn daughter in his arms and I cried too saying, "Lord, give me more drugs." And two years after that he held a sobbing me in his arms as I buried my sister. And 6 months after that he held me again as I cried over the loss of my breasts. Rain. Just so much rain in these four years.

I love our wedding photos with that grey backdrop. It's prettier than any sun or clear, blue sky. At my wedding and reception, as the rain fell outside, we said "I do" and we kissed and we laughed and we danced in a room made cozy and intimate by the fog against the windows that surrounded us. After the revelries of that night we fell exhausted into each other's arms, husband and wife. In the morning we woke up to a bright yellow sun and he said, "Shit, it's beautiful out, I'm going to play golf" and I said, "Fine, I'm going to brunch with my sisters and having a mimosa". That's so Gwen and Todd. Always will be. Happy Anniversary, Baby. I love you; especially when it rains.