a wild wedding day

Six years ago today my mother got married. Why she and my step-father picked April Fool's Day to stand before a judge I have no idea, but with all the crazy events that day it almost didn't happen. I woke up feeling very queer and having a pain in my middle and since I was about 8 weeks pregnant I started to panic. We had just been through two very early miscarriages in the previous 12 months so my anxiety was justified and I called my doctor. She said to go in to the ER and get an ultrasound so Tim came home from the ship to watch Will and Mary.

While I was sitting in the lobby I was startled to find my grandmother. Apparently Grandfather had had a episode of not being able to breathe (he had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and was being worked on. She was scared, so when I was called to go in to be scanned, I invited her to come along. Just before we went it the CO of the hospital came over to ask about Grandfather and say hi to me (he was our previous CO in Naples, Italy). When he followed us into the examining room I was worried that he might stay and watch! But he took his leave and Grandmother and I soon were happy to see a little embryo bounce around the sac, heart beating wildly.

After I was released we were told that Grandfather was stable and had been moved upstairs to a room and was likely to be able to return home after a few days. By now my mother, soon to be step-father, and his sister (my mother's best friend) had joined us in the hospital lobby. It was decided that the wedding was going to go on, but with relatives descending from out of town the wedding was going to be a little bigger than the 5 people originally planned for. I, of course, was not invited since I had 2 little children in tow. Since I was worn out already I left them to the planning and went home. The ceremony went off without another hitch, but the morning's events produced a wedding day that was certainly memorable.

Since then Maggie (the dancing embryo) has grown to be a twirly 5 year old who bounces to music whenever she can. Grandfather succumbed to COPD a mere 3 years later, and Mother died of ovarian cancer before her 6th anniversary. She has been gone now for 6 months and a day doesn't go by that I don't miss her and wish I could call her and tell her about our latest adventure. I will be sure to call my step-father today and give him my sympathy. I'm sure the overwhelming feeling of loss and grief will fade over time, but for today I will look back on that April Fool's Day and be consoled by the love shown that day.