My girl is getting married. She’s getting married and having a little girl. She may be my middle child chronologically, but she’s the one who first made me a dad. She’s the one who I held the day she was born. She’s the only tie to my brother I have. She thinks she looks like her birth mother, only I can see she’s the spitting image of my mama.
I only have one picture of her, and it’s from right before she left this earth. I can remember her clearly from my childhood. I don’t need pictures. My girl brings her to life. Now I have to let her go and let someone else be the most important man in her life. I know he’s a good man and I can see he’s completely in love with her and will be a good husband. I know I get to move into the role of Pawpaw and I can’t wait to see my girl be an amazing mother. Still, there’s a feeling of sadness today too.
I feel an arm go around my waist and know it’s my heart.
“You standing out here tryin’ to stop time, Jonah?” I shake my head.
“No, just realizin’ that after today, my girl doesn’t need me anymore.” My love smacks my arm.
“You stop that. She will always need her pa. You may not be the number one man in her life anymore, but she will always need you. It’s like that one country song said, you loved her first. She knows that and she loves you beyond words. Her marryin’ Shane doesn’t change her love for you. We taught our kids that love expands and that includes when they meet their one. You gonna be this way when the boys marry Jane?”
“No. This is different. I’ll probably feel this whenever Mads gets married too. I love my boys with all of my heart, but my girls, Linnea, they’re both special and both came to us in ways that from so early on, I was the only man for them. I’m just gonna miss that.” She kisses my hand she’s holding.
“I get that. It’s time to get in there and see our girl. You ready, my love?”
I stiffen my back, get control of my emotions, and nod.
“Let’s get my girl married, Linnea. Before I lose it.”
Kierstie
There’s a knock at the door and Mads goes to open the door. Ma and Pa both walk in. Looking at the two people whose opinion means the most to me, besides Shane’s, I ask them, “How do I look? Do I look like a horribly pregnant woman having a shotgun wedding?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not, my girl. You look gorgeous. This dress looks like it was made just for you.” Pa knows just what to say.
“Thanks, Pa. I think we all turned out okay with our dress choices.” Pa looks around at Mads, Hanna, and Kinsley.
“You ladies all look amazing. Even more beautiful than the time you all dressed up as princesses for that birthday party one year. How all my little girls grew up without my noticin’, I’ll never know.” Pa, ever the charmer, gets a smile from everyone with that. I can tell Ma is tryin’ to hold back tears. I’m not sure I’m going to make it through this without them, and honestly, I can’t even blame my hormones today.
Mads walks up to me with panic in her eyes.
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
“Don’t hate me, Sis, but I’ve been so busy planning everything that I forgot about the whole something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue thing!” I can tell she’s freaking out that she let me down. Ma steps up and puts an arm around her.
“Oh, my sweet girl, we’ve got you. Girls, should we show her what we got?”
What’s goin’ on here?
Kinsley comes up and hands me a box. In it is a beautiful bracelet.
“This is from your new family. Grant, Samson, Sax, and I picked this out for you to wear today. We wanted you to know you’ve always been family, but now you’re really stuck with us and we couldn’t be happier about it.” I try to keep the tears from falling as I look at the beautiful gift she just gave me.
Hanna comes up to me and reaches out for my hand. In it she puts a blue ribbon. “This is your something blue. It’s also old. You gave me this ribbon on my sixth birthday. You told me that it was the same color as my eyes and so that even when I couldn’t see anymore, I could remember this ribbon and know what the color blue was. I figured you could put it around your bouquet.” The tears start to fall. Ma comes up to me next.
“These, my girl, are the earrings I wore on the day I married your Pa. They were a gift from your grandma, Pa’s ma. She had saved all her tips for over three months to get these for me. I’m gonna let you borrow them to wear them today. That covers all of it, I think.” Thank the gods for waterproof mascara, otherwise I’d look like a wet raccoon.
Mads looks at me and smiles.
“I might have forgotten that stuff, but I got you these.” She hands me handkerchiefs with my soon-to-be initials on them.
A clap of hands gets our attention. It’s Pa.
“Alright, ladies. It’s showtime. Your man might start losing his shit if we don’t start this thing in the next few minutes.”
We all spend a couple of minutes fixing our makeup and making sure we’re all good to go. Looking at myself in the mirror one last time, I realize how much I love the empire waist of this dress. It shows off just a little of our baby girl, but not everything. The way it flows down to the ground makes me feel just a little like a princess. I have my hair down with just a few strands pulled back in a broach-like barrette with baby’s breath in my hair. All I can think about though is seeing Shane waiting for me at the end of the aisle. The way his hair falls slightly in his eyes and his close-shaven beard just highlights his smile. I still can’t believe I get to be the one to wake up next to him for the rest of my life.
“Alright, Pa. I’m ready. Let’s go get me married.”
