Weddings Are New Beginnings

This week marks my seven year wedding anniversary. Together for fifteen, married for seven. Three surgeries, two kids, four cities and two continents later here we are. Sometimes I forget to catch my breath.

Rather than talk about my anniversary this year, I want to share with you a story from the time surrounding my wedding.

We were living in Sweden, and were going to be married in the town where Hubbie was raised. We sent out quite a few invitations to my family and extended family in the States. Partly out of formality, mostly out of tradition. I mean, who is going to fly to Sweden for a wedding?

Twenty-five, it turns out.

A whole slew of my crazy American friends and relatives planned their descent onto an unprepared Scandinavian culture. Young and old, they saw this as an opportunity too good to miss.

My gramma's youngest brother lived with her at the time. I have very good memories of my uncle. He helped my dad haul my shit off to college four years running. He worked on my car. He loved my sister and I something fierce, and I felt the same way.

My uncle was an alcoholic. His children and grandchildren had completely disowned him. None of them ever visited. He would get phone calls on occasion, but was very little contact between him and his family. I do not doubt the complexity and emotion of those damaged relationships, but I know it was hard on him.

When he showed up on my grandmother's doorstep, we all knew he had come to die. He was twenty years younger than his sister, and he looked twenty years older. The liquor was killing him. Somehow, she nursed him back to health, and he became a permanent fixture in all our lives.

Out of love and respect, I sent him his own invitation. He was his own person, and I felt he deserved to be addressed as such. He had no income, no savings to dip into for a plane ticket. Regardless, I wanted him to know that even though we were to be married thousands of miles away on a different continent that we would be thinking about him and that he was loved.

My mom called me one evening sounding uncharacteristically emotional. She told me that my uncle had called the house looking for her. He wouldn't talk to my dad but left a message for my mom to call him after work. He wanted to speak to my mom in person. She returned the call, completely bewildered. Was there something wrong with my gramma?

He hemmed and hawed a bit, obviously embarrassed. He finally got down to it. He asked my mom how to go about applying for a passport.

My great-uncle, who worked in a junkyard, had his first kid at sixteen and had never traveled in his life, wanted to come to my wedding in Sweden.

My mom brought the papers to him. She helped him read the paperwork and fill out the information.

My parents paid for his passport application. My grandmother paid for his plane ticket.

He was there to dance at my wedding.