A Wedding Without A Funeral
How to: exit your head
I attended my cousin’s wedding at the start of the summer. I won’t lie to you – leading up to it, I was incredibly reluctant to the whole ordeal. He’s a year younger than me and anytime someone younger than me gets engaged or married, I panic. I can’t explain it; maybe it’s a combination of fears about what’s expected of my own timeline and religious impacts, but that’s for another day. But I went because I didn’t want to leave everything on a sour note.
I’m glad I did. I forgot how emotional weddings make me. A few years ago, I went to another cousin’s wedding, and when the maid of honor spoke about the couple, I cried. Full on. That’s big coming from me, if you know me at all, because it takes a lot to make me cry. I didn’t even cry at Love, Rosie because I felt like the pressure to cry was too high. There’s something so beautiful about someone loving someone so much, you can see it through another’s eyes. Like the love is on display without being projected. Authenticity without performance.
I was nervous about entering my cousin’s wedding, even though I had no logical reason to be. I wasn’t in the wedding, and the most high-level thing that happened to me was sitting in the front row with the rest of the family and taking pictures at the end. Still, a sense of relief washed over me upon seeing my grandmother. Everyone was telling me how beautiful I looked (which endeared me very greatly because I love compliments and I was worried about my shakey eyeliner) but the first clear breath was seeing my grandma. For the first time in years, I got to hold her hand.
I was supposed to visit them, her and my grandpa, for Thanksgiving, but he died very suddenly at the beginning of November, and I never got to visit. I think I’d been holding that breath in a lot longer than I realized. Longer than the engagement pictures, longer than the wedding invitation, longer than it took to get ready for the day. As long as it’s been since November 2021. It’s like I’ve been injected with a new fear inside me, an anxiety I don’t even realize I have until after the words are spoken. When I asked my dad if I could send my grandma a letter, I was terrified that he would tell me she died over the weekend. And when he said she’s moved apartments, the feeling didn’t dissipate. It’s the same feeling as returning home and seeing a hummus shop replace your favorite boba store before you can even get the chance to say goodbye to the high school memories.
We arrived late to the wedding as per usual. It started right as we sat down, and my cousin walked my grandma to her aisle. After a few more processions, he cried for the remainder of the wedding. I was like the Grinch when his heart grew; it melted all my insides and made me realize the day wasn’t about me. It never was. It was beautiful seeing him cry. I almost cried too, but held back because something in me told me I had to. My mother’s eyes were dry, but my dad somehow snuck a tissue up to his face. All I could think about was how beautiful my family looked up there, and how much my grandpa would love to be there. He’d be crying his eyes out too, before he walked my cousin down the aisle, and he’d be remarking on how beautiful the event was. Later, I found out that all the rest of my cousins and aunts cried. I guess I come from a very emotional family. It’s no surprise then that I became a writer.
The reception, aka the source of all my fears, was better than my expectations. I got to spend time with my girl cousins and it was nice to see how much cooler we all got with age. I hate thinking back on myself as a teenager and being around my family reminds me of that time. I was really bad at being a teenager, like a solid C+. It physically pains me to know that they have to carry around that image of me at all times.
We were sat at the same table as the pastor and his family, which is a phenom foreign to me, a native Catholic. But we got on really well. He told me he has a deep respect for editors and found it really cool that I got published. (Oh yeah, I got published. Last story in the edition.) He told my cousin that we were the cool family and I felt like I won a little something in family relations. It was great, especially because most times being around family feels like holding a fist that’s waiting to be tightened.
When my parents and I got back to the hotel, we watched this truly terrible movie This Is Where I Leave You. It’s ironic how it’s another movie about families and funerals, and the characters are bad, much like the plot. But I gave it a star because family is hard and you love them either way. At least that’s my hope.
I’ve begun to realize that I have a habit of holding people under a microscope and deciding whether they’re good enough for me. I forgot how pretty ungreat I am. I know I’m pretty bad, but when it comes to other people, I seem to forget that. Not in a demeaning way either. Most people suck. That’s the human potential. “There’s always room for improvement,” was the pastor’s motto as we rated the newlywed’s kisses. My own head can be a very limiting and drastic place, I’ve found. It’s good to sometimes leave it and enter someone else’s.