A Wedding Day

Joan and I are going to Jaclyn Evans' wedding tomorrow, where she will marry Russell Roben. Jaclyn's grandparents, "Boots" and Leonard Evans, came out to California from back east in that great American internal migration after World War II. They and Joan's parents Joe and Esther made the move together, plunging into the land of dreams by the blue Pacific to build their lives in the setting of the expanding opportunities of the Golden West. My parents too transplanted to sunny California in those same years. So Joan and her sisters were raised alongside the Evans children, not blood relatives but close enough that both sets of kids referred to the other's parents as aunt and uncle. They all grew up and had their own families. It seems like just a couple of years ago at Easter when our Marie and Bill and Sue's Jaclyn were both infants. We put them on a bed together and they rolled their heads toward each other, staring with rapt attention and communicating through a series of googling noises, evoking oohs and aahs from all the parents and grandparents. But it wasn't just the year before last; it was over twenty-five years ago! Is that even possible? Marie's been married a year and now it's Jaclyn's turn. Boots and Leonard have been retired for years, Joe and Esther and my parents are no longer with us and Joan and I are closer to 60 than fifty ourselves. Where could the time have gone? I guess what I'm taking away from this is to savor each moment. Each is precious and irretrievable. As we share in Jaclyn and Russell's big day and celebrate the beginning of their lives together we are also reminded of the speed with with everything changes. We are always in the process of creating new beginnings as the cavalcade of life unfolds before our eyes.