The following is written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
The wedding was under-way.
I sat in the front row and turned in my seat to watch the back for her entrance.
As I waited for that moment before the thrown-open doors of my daughter’s wedding that every mom pictures when they have a little girl,
I looked around the room to see the people that sat behind me excited and waiting for her, too.
When the doors first opened I felt disappointed.
From where I sat I couldn’t see her.
So many heads were in the way.
But that is when I realized the beauty in the view that I could see.
The backs of the heads of those people who had meant so much in our life, anxiously awaiting this moment as much as I was because they had helped in a thousand ways to create it.
The heads of people that had walked alongside me right up to that very moment
in that very place.
I could see Millie,
whom I’d known for over 30 years.
The mother of my childhood best friend,
she had hemmed the dress kneeling on a knotty wood floor.
A lot of feelings happen as you stand in your childhood best friend’s bedroom watching your daughter’s wedding dress be hemmed.
There’s something to be said for familiar spaces when so many of your life stages are new.
Behind me sat my tribe of best friends,
there in one fortress of a row.
The friends who have helped hold me up as I walked wobbly down this brand new path of learning to let my daughter go.
They’ve reminded me of all the things that I still get to hold onto.
There was my cousin, Jennifer.
She’d flown in from Georgia to cook all of the wedding food.
She’d flown in to make me laugh my way through the aching.
She sat beside my aunt, and my dad, and my brother.
My family is all so dear to me.
Seeing all of those people in the same room together really did something in me in that moment, and
I will hold the view of them waiting to share in one of my life’s most special moments in my heart for as long as I live.
How beautiful that crowd.
I looked back and saw my community.
Dozens of hands that had held us for months, no
years, actually.
Friends that had, together, sculpted out this most perfect day.
There sat weatherproof wisdom,
There was fresh, brand new hope.
A crowd of beloved “Something Old”s
and some precious “Something New”s.
I looked back and saw a sea of hands clasped in laps, waiting to see my daughter marry her one true love, and it felt like we joined them together in that brief moment.
I saw there the hands that had helped shape this beautiful, awaited day.
Hands that had helped raise her,
Hands that had helped push us along when it was only us two,
Hands that helped fill us,
Hands that tied up all our loose ends.
In that moment I remembered one of my favorite Bible verses:
Psalm 139:5
“You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.”
I’ve often contemplated being hemmed in behind and before.
Having your life feel sealed.
Keeping you living in and appreciating the moment you are in.
And oh, this moment…
I looked back and saw that hemming in in the form of so many hands that had helped to form what had become my life.
Cupping like potters.
Cupping like love.
Hands that stitched, and tied ties,
that made pies,
and shower arrangements.
Hands that worked, and clutched, and soothed.
Hands that joined in prayer, and friends that stayed when life was not always easy.
What I saw behind me was the vast spread of all of our treasure.
I saw the hemming that was
behind.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
