The Strand That Won't Lie Flat

It was a destination wedding in Cancun. The resort’s website wasn’t clear or easy to navigate. It was difficult to see what the rooms looked like or to get a feel for the resort as a whole. Once I booked the room, I couldn’t verify our reservations. I had to just assume it was all good because they charged my credit card. I decided not to worry about it since the wedding was almost six months away.

Then, about a month before the trip, I received an email saying the resort was having trouble charging my credit card for the remaining balance. That gave me pause. I’m not accustomed to paying for a stay before I actually go. And after several attempts to communicate with the resort, I had to enlist the bride’s help to resolve it. I couldn’t help but think that attending a wedding at a resort in Cancun shouldn’t have been that complicated. I was annoyed with the resort, but I was committed to going.

Ryan and Nick have been best friends ever since they met in second grade twenty-seven years ago. And even as we moved to different states, he visited our home. His mother and I are also friends. They were both there prominently when Matt died.

We didn’t arrive at the resort until the day of the wedding and were in a bit of a rush to get our clothes pressed. The butler on our floor assured us that they would have the clothes back in time for us to get dressed. As it turned out, the clothes didn’t arrive until ten minutes before the wedding was scheduled to start. We had to dress in an electrical closet and then be sped across the resort in a golf cart to make it on time. The urgency of getting our clothes back and the threat of missing the wedding didn’t leave me any time to think about anything other than getting there before the bride did.

When we arrived, Ryan and his parents were standing outside the chapel, waiting for the bride. I felt a swell of emotion as the muscles in my stomach tightened, but I held it at bay, giving everyone a quick hug before hurrying in to take our seats.

The violinist began to play, and the chapel doors opened. Ryan stood arm in arm with his mother, Wendy. I thought of that day in Wendy’s van with our collective nine children in the back, excited and noisy, as we drove to the Michigan Dunes. And how we sat in sand chairs along the water’s edge as the tide washed over our legs while the kids played around us. I saw Ryan standing in my kitchen the night he, Nick, and Matt were headed out to the bar in Atlanta. I told Ryan to make sure Matt and Nick didn’t get into any trouble or fights while at the bar. But Ryan said, I’m sorry, Mrs. Brown, but I will be right there with them if they do.

I felt grateful then for the friendship the boys had built. And grateful, in that moment, for the one Wendy and I had built alongside it.

Right there, along with those thoughts, was the thought that Matt would never escort me to my seat before his wedding. Nick’s wedding had been small and intimate without a procession. The tears came before I could stop them.

Tears of sadness for my personal loss. Tears of joy at Ryan’s smile. Tears of understanding for the tears in Wendy’s eyes as she lets her little boy go. I felt grateful to celebrate the beginning of this new chapter for them, even as memories of the last time we were all in a church together floated through my mind. And while it would have been easy to collapse into overwhelming grief over that memory, I instead wrapped it in the ones we were creating together. Joy and grief braided together.

Life is full of things that feel contrary to one another. Joy and sadness. Pleasure and pain. Happiness and grief. It can be hard to appreciate the joy of an occasion or embrace happiness when you feel heartbroken or downright mad for what will never be. And then there is the anger.

Of all the emotions associated with grief, anger is the hardest one for me to embrace. I don’t know where to direct it. At God? At Matt for feeling there was no other way out? At myself for not doing more? At other mothers who get to keep their sons? In the beginning, I was too devastated by the magnitude of the loss to be angry. I felt his absence in the pit of my stomach. A piece of my heart had been ripped out. Anger required too much effort. Over the past eleven years, I have learned to walk with the sadness and grief. Sometimes it’s in front of me. Sometimes it’s behind me. But most times we walk together. I have learned to incorporate joy and happiness into that walk; it’s harder to braid anger in with the others. Because blame doesn’t resolve my anger at the unfairness of it all. Especially during those life milestones — birthday parties, graduations, weddings, and births. There’s no denying that his absence is felt.

During the ceremony, I watched Wendy dab at her eyes as I dabbed at mine. Tears of joy. Tears of sadness.

As we waited in the chapel while the bride and groom took pictures, Wendy commented that she hadn’t worn any makeup because she knew that she would cry. I wondered what my makeup looked like.

At the reception, I worried a little that when Ryan and Wendy came onto the dance floor, I would feel another surge of sadness. I squared my shoulders and braced for another wave of tears. But as they danced, I was reminded of another wedding I attended about a month before Matt died.

A young woman who grew up with my kids was getting married. She had spent the previous summer interning at Minerva Rising, so she and I had formed a personal relationship. In addition, my husband and I had spent years in a small group with her parents, so we sat at the table with them. I felt my typical awe-isn’t-that-sweet moment as the bride danced with her father. Nothing too emotional. But as the groom and his mother danced, I began to cry in a way I had never cried at a wedding. I couldn’t stop. I even laughed about it with the table, saying I didn’t know what was wrong with me. It wasn’t like either of my boys even had a steady girlfriend. Seeing any of my children get married was the furthest thing from my mind. There was something in my spirit that knew then.

The music pulled me back to Ryan and Wendy dancing right in front of me. The way they looked at one another as they swayed to the music made me smile. I glanced over the dance floor at Nick, and our eyes met. I knew he was thinking about our dance at his wedding. The grief walk is never easy. But there are those moments, like when we were all on the dance floor dancing to “I Gotta Feeling,” when joy and grief were braided together, and for that I am truly grateful.