Always and forever

Eight years ago at about this time, Mama and I were sleeping peacefully on the morning of our wedding day.

At least, I imagine it was peaceful. I was asleep at the time, so I couldn't tell you for sure, but we had certainly sorted out all of the final details of our wedding:

• I had recovered my ring after Mom had, in jest, dropped it as if losing it, only to see it roll down into a grate in the floor.
• Mama's brother--who, along with Grammy, had acted as our wedding planner--had found our lost wedding license after we had all spent a day driving from place to place around the farm looking for where we left it.
• Mama and I had sat down at Great Grammy's table at just before midnight the night before our wedding and drafted our vows. We had recently settled on the idea that we'd base them at least loosely on lyrics from a Dylan song to reflect our shared love of his music and to echo our first conversation, when I was informally interviewing Mama for a job and started off with, "So, what's your favorite Dylan song?"

We've celebrated the fact that we did sort out all of these details and did get legally married by our friend, the Right Reverend R___, in many ways. So far this year, we've celebrated by spending from 2 to 3 a.m. trying to get Jewel back to sleep, which is almost as fun as some of our past celebrations.

Perhaps tonight it will get more rowdy, since Mama got two bottles of Spanish wine last time she was at the store, to remind us of our first date in Madrid, when we saw Aida in Italian with Spanish supertitles...a bit like Sweeney Todd with American supertitles, no? What better portent for lifelong love than watching two doomed lovers be buried alive under the Egyptian desert?

But we'll enjoy that wine--you know, the first two sips before it puts us to sleep. And I'll enjoy it even more knowing that she bought me wine, not boots of Spanish leather, because wherever she goes, no matter how far apart we may be--and she is decamping for India later this month--I will always love Mama. Always and forever.


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