As I walked down the aisle towards my destiny I thought back over the past two years. Two years ago I was a lonely, miserable woman. I had no self-confidence and very little hope for the future. My mother was drinking heavily and I was in full-blown enabler mode. I did everything for her and it had taken me a long time to realize that had been a big part of why she continued to do what she did. I’d gotten so used to my situation that I got to the point of needing her to be sick in order to validate my own life. I didn’t know that until recently. I’d started going to some of her AA meetings so as a family, we can make sure history never repeated itself.
I can see her now, standing near the front row, turned to look at me as the wedding march plays. She’s gorgeous in her apricot sun dress with her long, dark hair framing her face and hanging down her back. When she was drinking, her hair was dull and her skin a sickly yellow color. She’d looked sixty-five then, but now if I didn’t know her I would say she wasn’t a day over thirty-five. She was actually somewhere around fifty and she had a lot of good, sober years in front of her. She loved being a grandmother and she’d gotten a job at an antique store that she loved as well. It was so good to see her happy and thriving. She celebrated her one year sober anniversary nine months ago. She was already going on two. On top of her job, she was volunteering her time to counsel other lost souls through the long and arduous recovery process. It was so good to have my mother back.
Joe was pushing the object of this entire relationship in his carriage as he led me down the aisle, my precious Eric. I had only had the pleasure of knowing him for a year now but I can’t even remember what life was like without him in it. He was healthy and robust, curious, sweet, precocious…he was a miracle, and I loved him so much that not only my heart, but my entire body was consumed with it. I could be having the worst day ever, not that there were many of those anymore, but one small smile from Eric was like magic that washed all the troubles away. I watch him grow every day and soak up the world like a sponge and I marvel at how lucky I am.
Rose and Myra were constants at our house in the country. We sat by the big window in the kitchen sometimes and sipped our tea or our coffee and I think about that day I’d gone riding with Aiden. I hadn’t dared let myself hope that dream could become a reality back then, but here I was in the middle of it. Aiden had insisted that he didn’t want his son raised in the city so we’d moved into the house full-time not long after Eric was born. I didn’t argue with that. I was more than happy to live with my little family in the country. We took the baby on horseback rides every weekend and he had a dog and goats and sheep…he would grow up to be a regular farm boy, albeit a very rich one. I wanted him to be touched by the beauty of the life around him and the people who loved him before he discovered that. I wanted him to be rich in his soul before he ever knew how rich he was in his bank accounts.
That thought brought me around to Aiden’s grandpa. After Aiden began to go to therapy, he started thinking a lot about “the old man” as he called him. He said he began to wonder if the man deserved a second chance, if for no other reason than he was family. He obviously hadn’t forgotten Aiden completely. He’d been putting money continuously into those untouched accounts for thirty years. I wasn’t a big advocate of showing your love in dollar signs, but maybe it was the only way the “old man” knew how. I told Aiden that I would support whatever he decided to do. I truly believed that everyone deserved at least a second chance, and if you loved them, maybe a third.
Aiden started by investigating and researching him and he found out that he was a philanthropist now. He still ran his businesses but for the past twenty years he had given almost every cent he made during that time to different children’s charities. He had built hospitals and given aid to starving children in third world countries. The thing that impressed Aiden the most was that it was all hard for him to even find. “The old man” didn’t advertise it or talk about it in interviews, or accept public praise for it. He did it seemingly out of the goodness of his heart.
“He couldn’t be all that bad, right?” Aiden had asked me one night as we lay in bed. “Someone who would do all of that, even if it’s to make amends for the way he’d already lived his life, he couldn’t be a completely worthless person, right?”
“I don’t think so,” I told him. “If it is to make amends then that means he’s changed. Even if he did make mistakes before, trying to make amends would mean that he regrets them. I’m sure that his love of money cost him dearly. But maybe you need to meet him face to face and decide all of that for yourself.”
For the next few months he talked a lot about “the old man,” but he never took the step of arranging a meeting with him. I knew that he wanted to, but he was afraid. I think mostly he was afraid of the reality destroying the image of the kind and giving man he had begun to hope his grandfather had become. Finally, just before Aiden’s thirtieth birthday I called him myself. I found the number lying on Aiden’s desk. I told him who I was and that I was having a surprise birthday party for Aiden. I told him Aiden had been thinking of contacting him and would like to finally meet him. I asked if he would have any interest in coming to the party. He cried on the phone. He cried again when I met him at the airport and he cried when he saw Aiden. His tears only doubled when he met Eric. He’d been in town for over six months now. He and Eric went to the park once a week and took the dog out into the field and ran and played every day. Not that Eric could really run yet, but his great-grandfather made sure he won every race. I don’t think he’s planning on leaving again anytime soon.
When we reached the altar, Joe kissed me on the cheek and handed me over to my handsome groom. Other than our son, I’d never seen a sight so beautiful. It had taken us almost two years but here we were at last, standing with our bare toes in the sand of our own private island in front of God, our family and our friends, saying the vows to each other that I know we will both uphold. We had already been through the hard times. They were all in the past. Our future would be filled with family and love and truth and loyalty. No one was going to leave, and our son was going to have the best childhood ever…at least all of that was going to happen if I had anything to say about it.
That day I heard the seven most beautiful words my ears had ever been privy to: I now pronounce you man and wife.
Holly Rayner