Crying At Weddings

Just as you'd expect in the moments before a wedding, the air was electric with joy. 

Bridesmaids chattering with giddy excitement, 

mothers of the bride and groom beaming as their dreams were coming true; 

fathers of the happy couple puffed up with pride, 

and hundreds of guests caught up in the beautiful celebration of love.

Certainly there were many tears. Tears borne from the overwhelming emotions that a happy wedding brings forth; tears of happiness, tears of anticipation, tears of relief, tears of love. Tears of joy.

But as the wedding party gathered at the altar and the ceremony began, one person's tears captured my attention. He was crying - the groom's brother, his best man - with a quavering smile on his face, much like everyone else. But his tears, I noticed, were different.

They were tears of joy and delight, to be sure, but they seemed to be mixed with tears of more complicated, raw emotions

of pain,

of loss,

of the certainty that life will never again be quite the same. 

* * * * *

Later, during his toast, the groom's brother acknowledged his tears. He cracked jokes, made light of his intense emotion, and then helped us understand why he cried. 

He and his brother, the groom, had shared a bedroom for many years. As the night owl of the two, the groom's brother was usually awake as his brother slept, and he often glanced over to see his brother's sleeping face, night after night, year after year, in their room together. 

He spoke of this simple, comforting habit that held his brother's life to his.

A habit that was now, for the sake of his brother's marriage, about to fade into memory.

Dying so that something new could be born. 

And this, at least in part, was why he cried.

* * * * * 

My heart beat fast as he spoke these words. I was touched by his courage and honesty, his willingness to name this vulnerable feeling of pain, in the midst of so much joy.

Because this is the truth of life. Yin and yang. Sunshine and shadow. Death and resurrection.

We can't take one without the other, but in the "positive vibes only" mode of our world today, we often overlook what we assume to be the down sides of our lives. We brush past the darker, more difficult moments quickly, hoping, I suppose, that they won't taint our happiness, won't subtract from the joys of life.

But if we are bold enough, as this groom's brother was, to name our pain and to set it alongside our joy, to acknowledge them together, our lives are enriched by the beautiful synergy of these two complementary forces. 

Now I understood why the groom's brother cried. Why he was still crying.

And I cried too.