T
ook me a while, but I found what I was looking for. In a White Owl cigar box, at the bottom of a cardboard banker’s box, in a corner of a cluttered clothes closet, I found a five-by-seven glossy color photograph taken by amateur photographer Stephen Miyasato at a wedding in Honolulu on Sunday, July 25, 1971. I was present at the event.
For most of thirty years, in various cluttered clothes closets, that photo and a pair of matching three-by-fives have slumbered in the original drugstore reprint order envelope, inside that same cigar box. The hues in some of the other prints in the box have faded or grown muddy with age, but the wedding tints and tones—the blue of sky, the orchid of orchids, and the white of the bride’s dress—still gleam bright and true.
O
n the lawn of a Lutheran church, seven smiling celebrators stand beneath the tropical noonday sun. Bride and groom, their mothers, the minister, the maid of honor, and the best man. Cheeks and chins are in shadow, but noses and foreheads are aglow. A chaotic tangle of weeping willow hides the edifice of the church. If you know to look, you can recognize two automobiles in the church lot—the pastor’s Volkswagen van and the ’66 Dodge Dart wagon belonging to the mother of the bride. The Dart served as “limo” later in the day.
The bride, standing front and center, is long-haired, long-gowned, and holding a white bouquet. She is smiling with what appears to be confidence and unaffected joy. She is nineteen years of age; the groom is twenty-two. The groom’s grin is as full and fearless as his bride’s. His beard and hair, wild as the willow tree, have not been touched by scissors in more than half a year. He is wearing blue slacks and a tapa-patterned aloha shirt (sewn by the woman who has now become his mother-in-law; she also made the best man’s shirt and the dresses of the maid of honor and the bride).
J
ust a moment, please. I realize I’ve made an error. Examining the faces in this photo, I notice now that I miscounted when I spoke of “seven smiling celebrators.” There are in truth but five. The mothers are not smiling after all. They look what I would call “pleasant.” But, their expressions are not quite smiles.
I
could point out other details of the photo. But I needn’t narrate endlessly. Unless you ask, I will not tell you about the wedding cake, the sandwiches, the sermon, or the guests. I will not describe the rings or ask you to page through a cushion-covered album like so many others you have seen. Nor will I summarize here the things I believe I know for certain about the events that followed from that day. You have been patient and kind.
However, if you will give me just a moment more, I will repeat, word-for-word, what the couple said as part of their exchange of vows. “I promise,” each of them declared in turn (when their I-do’s were done), “to love you, and to live with you in Christ, forever and ever. Amen.”
F
orever is a good long while. But I’m sure you have, as have I, seen a few forevers come and go. I will forever remember that long-ago Sunday in July. Check back with me sometime, won’t you please, and I’ll take out that photograph again, or maybe another, from a later happy day, and I will tell this tale once more, most likely with a slightly different ever after. ♦
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Thanks! BUD GROSSMANN
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