To Sofia and Maxine on the Occasion of Their Marriage

09/15/2018

I woke up this morning thinking of coins.

I had this image in my head of two pennies glinting in the light.  Two bright, shiny pennies.

Sofia, pretty much from the moment they were born, was certainly a shiny penny.  Even as a small child they engaged with the world with confidence, joy and a certitude that, when they got a little older, could be a little challenging for their increasingly curmudgeonly Dad, but still shines like that bright little penny.

Maxine too, is a shiny penny.  Their almost constant smile, enthusiasm for things that goes far deeper than the surface and most of all their laugh.  When Maxine is particularly tickled by something…they let out a laugh that comes from somewhere far down inside and comes out sounding far deeper and broader than one would expect from someone their size and somehow manages to fill the entire room.

So I woke up thinking about these two bright shiny pennies, each from a different mint… each with a slightly different patina, but both compelling and twinkling in the light.

Then I thought…what do I have to tell these two about marriage?  While I’ve had the honor to officiate at a dozen or so weddings, this one is a little different.  My kid.  And since Sofi at least , has had nearly 26 years of hearing her Dad pontificate on just about everything under the sun, marriage and relationships included, rather than regurgitate something she’s already heard from me I thought I’d share a few thoughts from some other, more eloquent folks who maybe might have said a little of what I feel a bit better than I can.

Now, when Sofia and Maxine announced their engagement, I think both Jen and I were a bit hesitant.  Why now?  Why so soon?  Why not wait?   Not all that uncommon for parents who maybe aren’t quite ready to cut the umbilical….but then after thinking about it (and having some time to get acclimated to the idea) I recalled a particular quote.  I thought back to Spencer Tracy in the last scene he ever filmed which happened to be the final scene of the movie Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.  In the movie, he’s a curmudgeonly old man who has to face the prospect of his daughter having just announced her intent to marry, oh my gosh, a black man but only with his approval.  This being the 1960s, when interracial marriage was still illegal in some states, it was kind of a big deal.
At any rate, in that final scene Tracy’s character says, (and I am paraphrasing a bit):

“The one mistake you made was attaching so much importance to what you mother and I might think… because in the final analysis it doesn’t matter a damn what we think.  The only thing that matters is what you feel, and how much you feel for each other. And if it’s half of what your mother and I felt- that’s everything.

As for you two and the problems you’re going to have, they seem almost unimaginable. Anybody could make a case against your getting married.  But you’re two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case someone could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if – knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel- you didn’t get married.”

And as far as marriage itself, I want to share some recent words from the writer Neil Gaiman:

“This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I’ve learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.

It’s not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it’s what they mean.
Somebody’s got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn’t want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.

It’s not two broken halves becoming one.
It’s the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home,
because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours,
and it’s a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that’s all I know about love.“

So, Sofia and Maxine…here’s to the two of you. 

May you find the road ahead exciting, exhausting, enthralling as you walk it together .

…and when the nights come along, may you always find each other’s hands in the darkness.