Posts Tagged ‘Weddings and loss’

Aug 2012

*Rella, Consultant & Avi, Web Strategist*

This week we’ve been talking, in a whole variety of ways, about The Breaking Point, that point that we sometimes hit where everything falls apart. And what we’ve really been exploring are the times when that moment of crisis deepens your relationship instead of rupturing it. As far as wedding stories go, there is no more poignant version of that story than having a wedding after losing a loved one. So I’m deeply honored to share Rella’s story here, in the hopes that it helps just one of you on your own journey.

A lot of people have written powerful APW posts about losing a parent before a wedding, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one about losing a sibling. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has gotten married without a beloved brother (or sister) standing with them, so I wanted to share my story.

On June 14, 2010, my younger brother took his own life. This was just the beginning of an unbelievably heartbreaking summer.

The only (and I really mean only) thing that got me (and to a large extent, my family) through this difficult time was my now-husband, then-boyfriend. We’d been dating for just under six months at that point, so the fact that our relationship made it through that summer unscathed was the first indication that he was a keeper. He was an anchor for me as I navigated the uncharted, rocky waters of the grieving process. I literally don’t know how I would have made it without him.

As I came to terms with my brother’s death, and the many thousands of lost moments we were supposed to have together, I slowly learned how to be happy again, and to not feel guilty about being happy. I think that’s one of the hardest things when you lose a loved one so suddenly. But my brother wouldn’t want me to be unhappy for the rest of my life—he’d want me to be happy. I’m dishonoring his memory by doing that.

I also realized that you never know what’s going to happen in life. You have to take charge and make the most of the time you have with the ones you love. And if we could make it through that horrific summer, we could make it through anything. So when Avi proposed to me shortly after our one-year anniversary, I was thrilled to say yes. Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Rella & Avi

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 25 Comments »

Mar 2012

Reclaiming Wife: Taming the Fear

The funny thing about this post from APW Associate Editor Maddie is it’s not the post she set out to write. She told me she wanted to write something lighthearted and funny about wedding planning. Turns out, she wrote about marriage and death (oops). But what she wrote nails everything. It banged me over the head with a new perspective of what getting married and creating a family is and why it really can matter. It single handedly answers the question, “Why even bother getting married?” Let’s discuss.

Earlier this week, as I was preparing to write my post for today, I kept burning through draft after draft, amassing a small digital pile of crumpled papers in my computer’s trash bin. Nothing was sticking. Nothing felt right.

But then I read Sara’s post, and on that same day stumbled on a video for a grieving center that my mother and sister had participated in back home, and it was like the universe was telling me to get over my desire to write about wedding dresses already and just write the damn thing it wants me to write.

What Sara, my sister, and my mom reminded me about was just how f*cking scary marriage really is. I know that popular wedding and marriage conversations would have us believe that the worst thing that can happen to our marriages is that they end in divorce (always spoken about in the abstract, too—Divorce, like it’s the same for everyone) and if I didn’t have the morbid mind of a kid who attended one too many funerals in her youth, I’d believe that was true. But for me, the reality of marriage is that it represents the constant risk of loving someone with all your heart while knowing full well that the universe might break it. To me, that is the scariest of scaries. And it terrifies me on a daily basis.

When my sister Stephanie passed away almost thirteen years ago, my family fell into disarray. My younger sister feared that she’d contract the same illness that had taken Stephie’s life; my mom was doing everything she could to keep our family together while coping with her own immense grief; and I shut myself off from the event entirely.

My grief manifested itself in the form of perfectionism and control. Amid the chaos of my family’s coping mechanisms, I saw the ability to manipulate the tangible artifacts of the world around me as a means of mitigating the tornado of feelings present in my house, while simultaneous providing me with the false sense of empowerment that I could prevent further tragedies from befalling us. I was a perky, overachieving robot who had cut herself off from reality, and as a result, from feeling anything at all. Which to me, was all the better. No feelings meant that you couldn’t feel anything bad. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: Taming the Fear

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife, The Hard Stuff | 130 Comments »

Mar 2012

A Few Hours of Happy Amid the Sadness

One of the things that’s proven to be profoundly important about the APW community over the last four years—profoundly and rather unexpectedly important, given where we started—is the ability of this community to share wedding stories that are not being told elsewhere. For those of you planning a wedding while grappling with grief, it’s important to know that you’re not alone. And for the rest of us, it’s important to remind ourselves why a wedding matters in the first place and what a life together means. So today I’m honored to introduce Sara, telling a story that’s hard to tell.

After more than a year of planning, and with only a month to go before the big day, I had managed to remain pretty calm about the wedding planning process. We followed some sage APW advice early on and decided to spend our money and efforts on the things that matter most to us. We wanted a secular ceremony that was intimate and personal, so we decided to get married in our living room, surrounded by a small group of our closest family and friends, and we asked my brother to serve as our unofficial officiant (Note: if you live in PA or another state that provides self-uniting marriage licenses, this is totally doable! And legal!). We wanted to celebrate with a great party with amazing food and booze, so we hired a kick-ass caterer and bartender. We didn’t hire any other vendors (I made all of the flower arrangements with my best friend, photos were taken by family and friends with polariods and disposable cameras, and lots of other DIT action was going on behind the scenes). All of which is to say that by focusing on the important things, and minimizing (and in some cases, eliminating entirely) the less important things, I had been able to focus and enjoy the planning process with very little stress. I thought I had hit my Wedding Zen. And then, on February 24th, I had my first major wedding related meltdown.

On that fateful day, for no discernible reason, I suddenly freaked out and convinced myself that I had not ordered nearly enough food from the caterer. We needed to order enough to cover forty-three people, even though our final headcount was only thirty-three, and we needed to add a ham to the carved meat station. HAM! WE MUST HAVE HAM! AND ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED TEN ADDITIONAL, IMAGINARY GUESTS! HOW COULD I NOT HAVE REALIZED THIS SOONER! I spent a solid half hour that evening shouting such things at my partner, who I’m certain thought I had completely lost my damn mind, but instead he simply said “I think that if ordering more food will make you calm down, you should do it.”

And then, a few hours later, we found out that my brother is terminally ill. And suddenly, I didn’t give a f*ck about the ham anymore.

The news of my brother’s declining health was not entirely surprisingly. He was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, underwent grueling treatments and came through it, his cancer in remission. But a host of complications arose as a result of the cancer treatments he received, and now he is terminally ill. His doctors are considering alternative treatments options, all of which are quite scary and none of which provide a guarantee of long term survival. At this point, the doctors say he has about a year to live. Although my family was well aware of my brother’s serious health problems, none of us saw this coming, at least not yet.

I repeat: f*ck the ham. Continue reading A Few Hours of Happy Amid the Sadness

Posted in: The Hard Stuff, Wedding Undergraduates | 27 Comments »

Oct 2011

Second Time Bridesmaid: The Fiercest Kind of Love

I was a bridesmaid this weekend. I always joke that our friends are not the (traditional, bridesmaid having) marrying type, and by and large they are not. That comes from a deeply bizarre mix of growing up around poverty and having slightly bohemian friends. But I’ve been a bridesmaid twice, both times for my friend Lacey. The first time was ten years ago when we were 20, and the second was this weekend when we were 31. The fact that the wedding party was a group of girls that have known each other for twenty years tells you much of what you need to know about our hometown and the kind of intense loyalty growing up in a very difficult place engenders. For me, the wedding was about the story of the last ten years, the growing up we’ve all done, loss, and the profound hope of love.

I get a lot of emails about second weddings. I hear a lot about ladies who are terrified how their community might judge them—ladies who are worried whether they deserve a party the second time around. Here is what I learned this weekend: chances are, this fear could not be farther from reality.

As bridesmaids, this was not our first time at the rodeo. We knew a thing or two about getting the bride dressed, making sure the groomsman behaved (at least till after the ceremony—shots!), and setting up centerpieces. Ten years ago, we’d done what on paper looked like the same tasks, and we’d worked hard trying to get it right. But none of that compared to the ferocity of love present at a second wedding with a crowd of women who have walked through the fire together and who know what love and loss look like. Ten years ago, I worked hard to make Lacey happy on her wedding day. This weekend, I would have walked on water to make her happy, and all the other girls felt the same way. When someone you love has walked a hard path with grace and found someone who really makes them happy and adores them just the way they are? That is the kind of love you fight for, curl hair for, set up centerpieces for, wrangle tuxes for, line up groomsmen for, wipe tears for, and throw confetti for.

Going into the weekend, I had a sense of just how hard everyone was loving Lacey and Ric. But I thought, on some level, that we’d pretend the last ten years didn’t exist. That to make room for love, we’d let everything else go. What I hadn’t realized was the way that weddings allow you to hold many conflicting things in your heart at once. They allow your heart to enlarge; they let you access the rooms whose doors you’d locked.

On Saturday, all of the last ten years were in the room at once. I watched Lacey read her vows (off her phone!) thought about how wonderful it was that she finally had found someone who deserved her. I watched her dance with her eleven-year-old son, and teared up thinking about how I used to spoon baby food into his mouth while gossiping with Lacey about my over-wrought collegiate dating life. I watched Lacey’s tiny niece, a flower girl, spin around the dance floor, thought of her as a baby, and hoped for the future.

And then there was the loss. Continue reading Second Time Bridesmaid: The Fiercest Kind of Love

Posted in: Bridal Brigade, Life, Meg's Thoughts, Personal Thoughts, The Day Itself, The Hard Stuff, Weddings | 46 Comments »

Oct 2011

Shana & Jared: Weddings and Grief

Earlier this year, we published Shana’s story about loosing her baby son, who was born preterm at just over one pound, after just thirty days of having him here. In the middle of his hospital stay, on the fifth day of baby Atticus’s life, she and her partner went to the courthouse and got married. It didn’t matter that they were planning a wedding for that summer, they needed to be a family for Atticus then. After that post went up, and you guys overwhelmed her with love, she told me, “When a baby dies, often people don’t want to hurt the parents feelings or make them cry, so they avoid talking about the baby or avoid saying his name. But all the parents want to do is talk about their babies and say their names over and over. Thank you for giving me the space to talk about my son and to allow me to say his name over and over.” And I wanted to thank each of you for holding Shana & Jared & Atticus in your hearts then. Today, Shana is back, talking about what their wedding this summer felt like, and how they’ve negotiated the darkness in the months since Atticus’s death. I know you’ll hold them in your hearts just as fiercely today.

To say that having a second wedding made sense would be an understatement. We had gotten married earlier in the year in the middle of tumult and we thought we should have a real wedding, surrounded by friends and family. My parents were supportive of this, and my sweet husband wanted the memories of what a wedding would have been like. I thought only of celebrating the joy of being together. I wanted to experience the laughter and love that supports weddings.

We were surrounded by love. One friend made signs and baked our cupcakes. I wore the $100 dress I loved again. Our awesome photographs were provided by one of my roller derby sisters. My wonderful step-father gave the most beautiful speech ever. My relatives and friends decorated our venue. My mother and father-in-law presided (they’re both ministers) over the service and infused it with the kind of sentimental value that comes with thirty years of knowing each other. It was a beautiful community affair that absolutely reﬂected my husband’s and my personalities.

Which is why it is hard to look at it a couple months later and feel numb.

Which in turn, makes me feel like a jackhole.

We had loads of people working to give us a new start. Desperately working to give us the kind of beginning that is wished upon newlyweds, but it wasn’t a new start. It was a wonderful party, ﬁlled with laughter and yummy cupcakes and friends dressed to the nines, showing up to celebrate us… but there are no do-overs after losing your child. There are just days and more days between your present self and the self you were the day he died.

We’ve ofﬁcially been married for nine months now. Eight months ago, Atticus died.

Since then, our relationship has been strained. Our goals and priorities are the same. Our love is immense. We still laugh and sleep in and cuddle. Getting on the same page has been loads more work. At times, I snap. What I should say is, “I’d really like to take Walnut Avenue back to the house.” But my mouth hisses heat and it comes out like, “Are you freaking kidding me? I TOLD you I wanted to walk down Walnut. Do you EVER listen to me?!” The truth is, my husband very much listens to me. The truth is, sometimes I feel life-lost and it scares me and admitting the truth scares me more. The fear spits out sideways and the one person that knows just how I feel is alienated.

I know this is typical of people who have lost children. We did the grief group thing. We have talked lots about our feelings. We have slowly cycled through the stages of grief. Sometimes, I make clumsy guesses at which stage I am in. It helps when people let me be who I am that day. It is infuriating when people tell me that everything is going to be lovely in the future. It is what it is today. I had a friend explain to me that everyone dies. Whew. Thanks for the life lesson, buddy. Now I get it.

Continue reading Shana & Jared: Weddings and Grief

Posted in: The Hard Stuff, Wedding Graduates, Wedding Graduates Return | 50 Comments »

Sep 2011

Wedding Graduate Revisited: Caitlin & Mike

Earlier this year, Caitlin wrote one of the bravest wedding graduate posts we’ve ever had on APW. She wrote about getting married the same week that her husband’s mother died suddenly of cancer. It’s been a year now since their wedding, and she’s back, writing about how impossibly hard their first year of marriage has been, what she learned, and how they pulled through it together. It’s a post that makes you realize why you go through the wedding, and what marriage is about at its core.

Mike’s mom passed away last August, we were married a week later, and as soon as we landed home from Mexico a text came in from his sister about selling their mom’s house and next steps—the honeymoon, quite literally, was over. Mike started teaching a few days later—his first time in front of a classroom as a student teacher—and was responsible for three freshman global history classes. The pressure was overwhelming, the expectations the supervising teachers had for him were unrealistic, and no one seemed to care that he was a student, not getting paid to teach, and outside of work was being forced to handle one of the hardest things life would ever throw at him. And so the months after the wedding were an intense emotional roller coaster. Actually, not a roller coaster but more like that free fall ride where you plummet down a few stories with your stomach in your throat and your knuckles white from gripping the safety bar so tightly. That’s a bit more fitting.

I took all of this on with him and it showed. I started cooking only comfort food and baking cookies on random weeknights, pretending that I would bring in the leftovers to work, but then there never were any leftovers. I made excuses for us to not have to go to the gym and instead did everything I could to wrap Mike up in safety and goodness, even if it meant that we became the stagnant, heaviest versions of ourselves. With our hair turning grayer by the day (not an exaggeration) and our eating habits completely broken, we let ourselves go.

We had always had a very romantic relationship, but in the months that followed Bernadette’s death, we turned into roommates. Loving, affectionate roommates, but more like cuddly buddies than the passionate couple we had been before. When we got home from long, stressful days at our jobs, we arrived to long, stressful nights of dealing with his mom’s creditors and home selling and lesson plan writing. We collapsed into bed each night and held each other, comforted each other, but that was it. I was foolishly embarrassed about this and decided not to mention it to friends, fearing they would think it was a symptom of a poor marriage, and since I knew that our relationship was strong, we just pushed through on our own.

We felt lonely in every aspect of our lives. Mike’s mom passed away just a week before the anniversary of his dad’s passing three years earlier and not having any parents, not being anyone’s child, left him feeling abandoned and, well, like an orphan. We stopped hearing from friends and family, partly because we were so busy that we were bad at keeping in touch, but partly because I think people just forgot to keep us in their circle of communication. Mike had always been very close to his extended family but for months after his mom’s passing, we didn’t hear from them. Christmas approached and with no contact from his family, I felt tasked with the responsibility of holding him together. He slumped into a deep depression for the month of December that was tied not only to missing his parents, but also missing the fact that he would never wake up in his childhood home with his parents and younger sisters on Christmas morning ever again. It was his first year not doing this, and some may think that at 32 he should have already had this experience, but since he hadn’t, and since family was such a huge part of his life before, the absence of that was devastating to him. We wished for the month to be over and then slogged our way through winter.

Continue reading Wedding Graduate Revisited: Caitlin & Mike

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife, The Hard Stuff, Wedding Graduates Return | 55 Comments »