November 4th: Give a wedding toast at my brothers wedding

Way back in 2004 when I got married I picked my brother to stand up next to me.  I know it wasn’t easy for him to say yes to this – given the social expectation that I have a Maid of Honor in a dress….and even though my brother loves me – that’s never gonna happen.  Mark is one of a handful of people in this world that I am 100% certain wouldn’t rat me out if I killed someone.  What?  Isn’t that how you grade relationships?  Okay, seriously though – he’s going to love me because I’m his sister for the rest of his life.  And I’ll love him too, because he’s my brother.  And there is nothing that we’d every do, say or think that would change that.  And we’ve said some pretty awful things and there was that time I may have chased him around the house with a butter knife because he had the remote.

Sometimes I’m not sure if I really believe in the institution of marriage – the legal contract- the terms – all that.  And don’t even get me started on the not letting anyone who wants to get married get married business.  Well, wait – there is something I’d like to say about that.  It’s wrong to not let two people that love each other get married.  It is wrong.  I don’t care if you’re personally uncomfortable with seeing it – I’m personally not comfortable with nutritional information – and yet, I deal.  Deal.  If two people want to give this marriage business a shot because they’re hopeful and in love and they would enjoy the legal contract – god bless them.  Oh yes.  I threw God in there too.  Because God (whichever one you believe in – or spirit – or whatever) loves the people.  All of the people.  I’m letting my light shine and NO PERSON is going to blow it out.

I’m sure that’s ruffling some feathers – likely in my family – but can I just say this one teeny thing?  There is so much hate and ugliness out there – people are starving – there were women last night fearful for their children’s lives fighting for our freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan- there are little babies in the NICU right now fighting for life – Can you not find something more important to care about then two peoples love?  I would be happy to assign a new cause to any person that feels their mission is to try stop any two people from getting married.  And besides that – do you know how much all of those weddings would contribute to our economy?  I jest, but for real, the parties, they would be awesome.

And we come back full circle to parties – I think weddings are a good time – even when marriage sucks (and sometimes it really does) the wedding is a time when you can say “that was awesome”. I enjoy them and I want to go to my brothers.  I want to congratulate him and his bride in front of all of our friends and family and I want to give a toast.  I don’t care if this happens in the next few months or thirty years from now (I know Gram would REALLY like to see it) but when it does happen you’ll better believe the toast will be awesome.