Wedding Days and Little Girl Ways

In one week's time, my little one in the middle will be getting married. She has been the sparkle in my days, the hug around my neck, for almost 25 years.  A sprite of a girl, I will always see her with her side-pony-tail, bouncing off the school bus and running into my arms. She will forever in my mind's eye, be six years old with a glint in her eye and a few cherished Nerds stuck to her palm.  Sometimes, even now, I will be talking to her when it suddenly hits me that  that I am sitting with a beautiful, fully-grown woman. Oh but she is still so full of light, still such a pleasure to be around.

Today, I was looking through my box of broken bits, you know those catch- alls where we keep stray earrings and rhinestones, and broken chains? I needed an AB crystal for the snap closure on a vintage purse I picked up for her wedding. Of course I had one crystal, just the right size; I have been putting oddities in this box for 35 years.  But I also found this.

It was a little pipe-cleaner tiara that I made for this very bride- to- be, 23 years ago for her first trick-or-treat outing. We were all fairies then, her older sister, and me too, wearing wings with my wedding dress. Oh those days were spectacularly easy, blissful.

When I held the little tiara in my hand, tenderly turning it over, I saw that it still had her baby hair caught in it. White-blond, fine, eternally baby hair.  Of course then I wept, what else was there to do? My baby bird is flying the nest. And even though it is into the arms of a kind and giving man, I will miss these "everydays" with her more than I can say. Her little sister will miss her too. The earth will shift on its axis, just a tiny bit next Saturday, indiscernible for the the rest of the world, but I will know as I stand and watch her take her vows at water's edge, that my life will never quite be the same. But I'll smile bravely and lift my champagne glass with everyone else. 

I'll watch intently all the goings- on: her dance with her new husband, her dance with my dad, her sisters' speeches -trying to freeze-frame it and hold onto it forever, with a million other memories. I'll do this right up till the last guest is gone. Then, when the ocean is dark, and the dance floor is bare except for a stray sequence and hydrangea petal,  I'll come home to a dull, quiet apartment. I'll kick off my shoes and get ready for bed. Then I'll lift the lid on my catch-all box, take out  the little tiara, and cradle it into sleep.