Weddings Celebrate Love

All love and not just the love between two people. That's what I've learned anyway.

My sister holds a tray. Her mouth is open into a wide smile. "Want a MIMOSA?" She asks.  Mom is squealing and her arms are in the air. My other sister's camera is flashing me. "Did you know?" She questions me, unsatisfied with my entrance and response to the surprise. The room laughs and I look around. Nearly every woman and girl in my life with whom I love is standing around me. One mother. One future mother-in-law. Two sisters. Two future sisters-in-law. Two grandmothers. Two friends. Six aunts. Countless cousins. And they are all smiling.

My sisters have compiled a pile of lies to get me home. If I had known, I wouldn't have been late, but it’s too late for that.

We all eat and drink and I speak to everyone I can for as long as I can before my aunt hollers...PRESENTS! In the living room, there is a pile of gifts so enormous, I look for the out-of-season Christmas tree. I am told later that it took me nearly two hours to open everything, read everything.

This wedding shower fills my heart with so much love, it feels more like a wedding bath with no plug.