The Wedding Prequel: A Mini-Vacation, With Complications

 

 

Our trip earlier this month was for the big event, our son’s marriage, and that is now safely encapsulated in the prior entry.  We prefaced that happy occasion by attempting to take a “mini” vacation.

 

One of my regrets when we were boating is that we never took our boat through the Cape Cod Canal and visited the ports along the Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine coasts. We did push to more eastern points, Cuttyhunk, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, with the latter being the furthest of our trips. Those were mostly pre-Internet days, and my communication with my office was by phone. Had I had the opportunity to work remotely as we do today, no telling how far we might have gone.

Nantucket Morning 1986

 

Looking back at my former self, I wonder where I found the energy (and fearlessness) to do as much as we did. But, by the time I was able to cobble together as many as three weeks, we were looking to “settle down” in one port for as much as a week or more, and Block Island always seemed to serve that purpose.

 

So, fast forward to the problem of squeezing in some time on the Massachusetts coast around the time of the wedding: we are a couple of 40-year-old minds trapped in 80-year-old bodies. We failed to realistically take into account the vicissitudes of travel nowadays. As a planner (hey, if I didn’t carefully chart our boat trips before the days of GPS, we might have missed Nantucket altogether and wound up in Ireland!), I naturally looked for the best possible flight options, and from there, car rental and hotel stays.

 

What is the saying, man makes plans and God laughs? He/she/they had a good one on us.

 

We booked Delta as it had an ideal nonstop flight, leaving for Boston first thing in the morning, thus almost guaranteeing an on-time arrival since the plane would already be at our local PBI at departure time (PBI was its designation then; now it is the unspeakable DJT). There was also a return flight the following week in early afternoon, well after the morning rush hour to Boston. So we booked those flights, Thursday to the following Thursday, and arranged our trip to arrive in time for the wedding and do our mini vacation afterwards.

 

So everything sensible, yes?

 

No.

 

Delta changed the flight out of here to the early afternoon, meaning arriving in Boston at rush hour, if it was on time. And we would have to return the car for the only nonstop return flight, leaving Boston in the morning during rush hour. No way did we want to deal with either scenario on a weekday, so I was able to successfully reorient our trip, this time arriving Sunday and departing the following Sunday. This meant having our little holiday first, and then the wedding. OK, we can deal with it that way. And thus the plans were set.

 

But it still meant packing for a week, about 20 pounds of stuff for me and 50 for Ann (why does it always seem to work out 2:5, no matter how long the trip or the destination?). And the carry-ons, our essential medications and nowadays our chargers and other related electronics. In this case, we’re pretty even, so another 10 pounds each. All of this “stuff” would have to be lifted onto a bus which apparently was the only way to get from the Boston airport to their off-site rental car center.

 

So I protested.  Her reply was simple. We’ll ask the bus driver to help us.  Realizing Ann lives in the alternative universe of the civilized past, when we all got “dressed up” to get on a plane, when there would be people there to help you check in, and the digital kiosk did not exist, I nodded obediently.

 

While I sprung for the amusingly named “Comfort Class,” a joke airlines have designated to extract as much money as possible from those desiring those old civilized days, my frugality as a Costco member led to a car rental reservation through them. Their rental agency du jour when I booked was Budget Rental.

 

Doesn’t make much difference to me, I thought. We’re no longer “elite” since I no longer travel for work when once upon I time I had a Hertz fast track account. They want to make sure that when you really need the “advantages,” that’s when you should be denied them.

 

For a hotel, we chose the Salem Waterfront Hotel, centrally located for where we wanted to visit, eliminating the need to check in and out of different hotels. And, because of boating, I’m a sucker for waterfront. Naturally, the hotel is not on the waterfront. I should have known, as the price was less than a bazillion bucks a night. But it was a good choice, rooms with spacious accommodations and very well located, only a block from Salem Harbor.

 

So, believe it or not, no complaints there. But I digress to the departure from PBI.

 

Not surprisingly, the flight was late, but only by an hour, which nowadays is a minor miracle. Naturally, every seat was filled, and I was left to get our small carry-ons up into the overhead bins, competing with people already seated who had chosen to put large luggage in the overheads which I would have checked, or would have considered just driving it all in a U-Haul, forgetting about flying.

 

But the real fun was at the Boston airport, finally retrieving our luggage, two medium-sized suitcases, 32 and 38 pounds respectively (remember, though, the 2:5 ratio of their contents).

 

We finally found the “line,” really a crush of people following the laws of Social Darwinism, trying to get on the “bus” to the off-site rent-a-car center. This vehicle was really three or four buses connected by flexible rubber so it looked like a long snake. My hat is off to the driver of such a contraption, but even if we were lucky enough to be able to board at the front, no way he or she (or maybe it was a humanoid) would have looked at us and taken pity on our struggle with four suitcases, having to not only lift them up two steep steps but then onto a higher rack.

 

For the first time since my open-heart surgery fifteen years ago, I thought I could feel the heavy-duty steel wires holding my breastbone together cry out for restraint. I think someone actually volunteered to help with the heaviest one, and to that chivalrous stranger, my thanks.

 

If only the agony ended there: on to the car rental.

 

We were herded from the snake bus into a corral where other cattle like us were standing in a zigzag line of untold numbers to get to the Budget/Avis rental counters. Apparently, those companies had merged to benefit the shareholders.

 

People ahead of us said someone who had just got his car remarked it was a two-and-a-half-hour wait. Maybe, I thought, these people too were clever Costco members. What a deal! Perhaps many of these people prepaid their rentals for an even better deal! I didn’t go for that option, I guess, for situations just like this.

 

Out of the corner of my eye, way down the airline-hangar-sized building, I saw nearly empty Alamo counter, an attendant on duty. I watched the luggage on line and asked Ann to go down there and check if they could rent us a car for a week.

 

They had two unreserved cars left, including the same stripped-down Toyota I had reserved at Budget. So we left our line and got a car. I wish that was the end of this part of the story.

 

I had already set the route from a myriad of Google Map choices, trying to avoid dark coastal roads and the one it preferred, into Boston via major toll roads and then out of Boston using the same. I was not going to drive into Boston merely to go northeast to Salem.

 

This car was perfectly fine, but basic. I had to get used to inserting the ignition key into the steering post, like in the old days. The shift was no longer on the steering post but on the floor and I kept turning on the wipers when shifting. The luggage compartment could not be opened except from an inside latch right next to the gas latch and, at night, not illuminated, although there was an option on the key, that is if you can see it in the dark and don’t turn on the alarm by mistake.

 

But the main problem getting to the hotel was that Google Maps did not want to do what it was told. It had us going through backstreets, strange neighborhoods, even what I thought were a few dirt roads. I was looking for 1A North signs, which AI had promised me there would be a surfeit of, but there were none. Perhaps I would wind up in a suburb of Baltimore, a neighborhood-to-neighborhood drive with the GPS continuing to say my destination is right around the corner?

 

OK, I exaggerate to make the point that, in spite of all this technology, life in many ways has become more difficult for people accustomed to a TripTik from AAA. I could have followed that! But Baltimore never emerged, and one hour-plus later we drove into the Salem Waterfront Hotel parking lot.

 

We had ambitious plans to visit Gloucester the next day, but we were actually grateful that the next day, a Monday, was rainy and we could rest. So alas, Gloucester and Rocky Neck were taken off our wish list.

 

Thankfully the hotel had a nice restaurant, and so we recovered that Monday, staying at the hotel, unpacking, rethinking our overly ambitious trip, and deciding to stay off the roads the following day and explore Salem.

 

We had decided on Salem as our home base as it was within easy driving distance of other places we wanted to visit. Another motivation was that, after recently seeing The Crucible (and having been associated with my college production of it sixty years earlier) I wanted to see that setting. Even without that draw, there is its waterfront setting, no doubt one of the cities we would have docked in had we boated further north when we were younger.

 

Much of Salem for the visitor consists of witch museums, cemeteries, and the like, such as the hangings.

 

This did not interest us, yet another reason to stay at a hotel away from the tumult. And indeed the crowds were drawn there, leaving us with mostly the waterfront and part of a day to explore the House of the Seven Gables, which became the subject of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel.

 

He lived in Salem, and in fact his birthplace has been moved onto those grounds. The famed house, when Hawthorne wrote his novel, had already been changed from seven gables to three to fit architectural trends at the time, but he had heard stories about it when it had seven, and that number stuck, inspiring his imagining it in the novel. Later owners turned it into a museum and restored the seven gables, even constructing a secret passageway that is implied in the novel but did not exist until the house became famous as a tourist site and museum.

 

Hawthorne Birthplace

So between the House of the Seven Gables, the original home of Hawthorne’s birth, and the beautiful gardens, all looking over Salem Harbor, its historic and literary significance, and 19th-century beauty, made it an ideal destination for us.

 

And it was within walking distance of our hotel, a bonus. We passed the little “Waite & Peirce” National Park Service building, with its pretty clapboard structure built sometime in the early 19th century.

 

Diagonally across the street is the 1815 Customs House, where Hawthorne worked for three years before being ousted by a new administration (the political spoils system; nothing has really changed), which he excoriated in his introductory essay to The Scarlet Letter, “The Custom-House.” (“Neither the front nor the back entrance of the Custom-House opens on the road to Paradise.”…Nathaniel Hawthorne)

 

That building is directly across from historic Derby Wharf, which early one morning, as the sun was rising, I walked the entire length to the Derby Wharf Light Station. It was a beautiful morning but becoming hot and humid, not unlike Florida, a disappointment for us remembering the cooler days and especially nights of the Northeast.

 

This bulkhead/wharf reminded me so much of the famous historic stone harbor wall, The Cobb, in Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, although an altogether different construction, a true seawall whereas Derby Wharf was a commercial wharf. But walking nearly a half mile into the harbor and back that morning, the connection could not escape me.

 

Salem has great seafood, and not coincidentally, we had dinner that night overlooking Derby Wharf at the Sea Level Oyster Bar, a favorite among locals.

 

The next morning we got Google Maps to behave and drove to the quiet coastal village of Beverly Farms, where I had hoped to capture a sense of the life John Updike where he wrote and lived for years. The high point was a visit to the Beverly Farms Bookstore, which Updike frequented during his stay there, and we thought the back room still had a sort of shrine to him.

 

Well, thankfully, that independent bookstore is still there, but the so-called shrine had shrunk to but a few of his books. I guess time erases everything, although according to the owner, Updike’s son was recently there to promote his father’s Selected Letters of John Updike, edited by James Schiff, which she showed me. At nearly 900 pages, there was no room left in the suitcases to carry it back home.

 

Updike’s output, poems, short stories, novels, criticism, these letters, was prodigious. He virtually documented his entire life in fiction and nonfiction. I don’t think there is an American writer who comes close.

One of the blessings of an independent bookstore is the knowledgeable owner, and she and Ann got into a discussion about Jane Austen. She said to Ann, “I think you’d like this book,” handing her a copy of The Wedding People by Alison Espach, not known to Ann, a voracious reader. She bought it and, in the next two days, at night, read the entire book (ironic title given we were going to the wedding in a few days), or I should say inhaled it. So that chance meeting led to this satisfying experience. Updike led us to it!

 

We strolled Beverly, drove down the street where he lived, but still weary from our trip, made our way back to the hotel and another great seaside restaurant for lunch, Finz, and then, to prove we were really just tourists, took the sightseeing trolley to get a good sense of the city of Salem. Naturally the tour focused on the witches, the cemetery, etc, but we were exhausted and glad to sit for an hour on such a tour. A high point for us was the Federal-style homes on Chestnut Street, many more than 200 years old, a step back in time.

 

We had made a reservation well in advance for that night’s dinner at Turner’s Seafood at Lyceum Hall, considered a Salem institution with some of the best seafood in New England. The hotel had a jitney to get us there and we Ubered back, so we did not have to do battle with the GPS to get there and park.

 

The restaurant was everything it was purported to be, historic and welcoming. We shared Cherrystone clams, an award-winning lobster bisque, a dish called Tuna Nachos, the most exquisite arrangement of slivers of fresh tuna on a house-baked nacho cracker with wasabi, soy sauce and scallions and other house specialties that lived up to their reputation, and finally, a swordfish and Italian sausage over linguini with fresh ricotta and sun-dried tomatoes (I have my wife to thank for remembering all those details).

 

For our final day we had planned to visit Marblehead, Salem’s immediate neighbor to the south, so it was a nice scenic drive, first to Chandler Hovey Park, with breathtaking views of the Marblehead Lighthouse and the literal hundreds (thousands?) of sailboats in the harbor and the Corinthian Yacht Club.

 

From there we went to the town, where parking is nearly impossible, but drove around on those little curvy 18th-century streets until we found a spot.

 

There Ann found a little boutique store which, naturally, had a “sale” on summer clothing, “coincidentally” just the kind she wears! Also, the careful planning of the store’s owner had provided a “husband’s chair” where I could productively check emails and get out of the heat. The interesting part of the visit (aside from two must-have-half-price outfits) was the story the owner told Ann: that she had been divorced about 50 years ago and the store became her passion, you might say her new marriage partner. And she got to meet interesting people, like Ann!

 

By then we were ready for what Ann had an obsessive craving for ever since we arrived in Salem: lobster. I can eat lobster, but I am no longer a big “fan,” as I once had a lobster license in Connecticut and tended enough lobster pots, which led to our eating LOTS of lobster over those years. I pretty much had my fill, but Ann still loves it, and what better place to have it than a local place, The Barnacle Restaurant, a no-frills, incredibly casual spot, but perched right over the ocean water with views of Fort Sewall.

 

We got there in the nick of time, Ann finally opting for the lobster roll, which was said to have all the lobster you would get in a one-pounder without all the work. This restaurant has its own lobster boat, so it doesn’t get much fresher than that. Here you can see Ann gleefully waiting at our table overlooking the water.

 

The final day was packing in the morning, checking out, and then driving to Sudbury, MA, to visit with our friends Bonnie and Bruce, whom we would see at the wedding the next day. I insisted on a photograph before we headed out to lunch, in the same spot where Bruce and I stood some 50 years earlier in his home in Sudbury (nifty zip code, 01776). And so here we were, then and now.

 

We followed them to one of their favorite lunch spots, Stephen Anthony’s, which Bruce aptly describes as “a staple of the old and doddering.” I followed his lead, having two poached eggs over corned beef hash with their homemade sausage. Better than lobster to me!

 

And from there we drove (all back roads again) to our hotel where coincidentally, at the very same time Jonathan and Tracie were arriving from NYC, so we finally had help with our luggage. Thus, that night marked the onset of the wedding festivities The Long Journey to Chris and Megan’s Day

 

But to close the circle of horrific travel, the day after the wedding, Sunday, we had to catch a 9:00 a.m. flight out of Logan and we were an hour away by car. We had to return the car to the rental center, get on the snaking bus, and then check in at the airport. We got up at 4:45 a.m. to start this ordeal.

 

I figured early Sunday morning should present ideal conditions, especially as the weather was cooperative and our plane was already at the airport. What could go wrong?

 

Indeed, the drive there on the Mass Turnpike was a piece of cake. I was hoping the car rental center would be easy to navigate at this time, but no such luck, frantically waving attendants directing cars into tightly packed lines until finally we were able to park and unload.

 

Back to the four heavy suitcases, which we were finally able to maneuver to the snaking bus, but, again, hordes of other people boarding. I got our suitcases on, got off at Delta, but there was no curbside check-in, and I was absolutely stunned that at 6:30 on a Sunday morning the Delta counters and TSA lines were jammed, the latter seemingly as far as the eye could see.

 

But first, we had to check in, and really the only option was the kiosk, which for us, with my tickets in my iPhone “wallet” was not exactly easy. We were clearly having difficulty. A young woman who was sitting with her grandmother, Internet- and technology-savvy, saw our consternation, took pity on us, and offered to help. What a savior, and we finally printed out our luggage tags.

 

Now the problem was getting the luggage to the Delta counter, for which there was another long line. Our young, savvy damsel said, “Wait here,” and she hopped the rope to the counter and explained to someone at Delta check-in that she was trying to assist two very old people drop off their luggage, so the attendant waved us in. So there are good stories to be told about someone who went the distance for us. Thank you. We’ll try to pass it on.

 

But then there was the TSA line. No way could Ann stand in it and we had an early flight to catch. It didn’t seem to be moving, so we asked for a wheelchair for her. She was given a wheelchair, but there were other people waiting in wheelchairs and there seemed to be only one attendant.

 

Therefore, I walked down the TSA line and finally found a Delta attendant who asked to see my “wallet” and said that there was another line farther down, but a very short one as we had PreCheck (naturally, no signs indication such a line). So, like a miracle, Ann arose from her wheelchair, and no sense recounting our other experiences along the way as we were 99% home, except for the flight, which left on time!

 

I said in my original entry that we would have walked to the wedding if we had to. Turned out, we did a lot of that, but it was an event we would not have missed for the world.

 

Salem Harbor as Viewed from House of Seven Gables

The Long Journey to Chris and Megan’s Day

 

 Traveling nowadays, particularly for those of a certain age, can be challenging. But on 8/8/26, my son and Ann’s stepson, Chris, was married to the love of his life, Megan, at a beautiful wedding venue, The Barn at Blackstone, in the Blackstone Valley of Massachusetts, a sylvan paradise that is so quintessentially New England. It is not around the corner from any major city, Worcester being the closest and Boston some fifty miles away, but just driving there from our hotel with our other son, Jonathan, and his wife, Tracie, lifted our spirits and our expectations as the green pastures rolled by.

 

Before the wedding day, and the rehearsal dinner the night before, Ann and I took a mini-vacation on the Massachusetts coast, using a hotel in Salem as our home base. Normally I describe our trips in chronological order, but this entry is the exception, because the wedding was the main event by far. Perhaps sometime soon I’ll have the rest of that trip written up and documented with some photos, but this entry is all about the wedding: meeting Megan’s side of the family, seeing friends of Chris and Megan, and catching up with others from our past, including my ex-wife, Chris’s mom, Carol, and my oldest friend from college, Bruce, and his wife, Bonnie.

 

The path to this weekend was a circuitous one for the wedding couple. Remarkably, this is the first marriage for both of them, Chris in his early 60s and Megan in her mid-50s. Both had loved and lost before and had perhaps begun to think they might never find that special person, going about their professional lives and accepting their autonomy. I remember once saying to Chris, “It will happen when you least expect it.”

 

And it did.

 

Chris came to live with us when he had just turned 13. Our own son, Jonathan, Chris’s half-brother, was only two at the time, and yet the two of them have grown closer as they have aged. Even though traveling is no fun for us octogenarians, Ann and I would have walked the 1,200 miles to attend this event! Admittedly, we would have had to leave about a year ago.

 

We had once met Megan’s dad, John, but this was the first time we met her mother, Katie, as well as Megan’s brother, Matt, and his family. Katie graciously hosted the rehearsal dinner for mostly out-of-town family and friends at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Worcester. Need I say more about the excellence of the dinner?

 

There were, of course, elements that could have led to anxiety for the couple: How would the two families get along? And what would it be like seeing my ex-wife, Carol, whom I had seen only once in the past fifty years, at my father’s funeral more than thirty years ago?

 

Any foreboding emotional clouds that might have existed disappeared instantly. We were there to celebrate Chris’s marriage, and Ann and Carol even got along as if they were two old friends.

 

As I sat next to Megan’s mom, Katie, I got a good sense of her sharing in the joy of the moment, as well as her thoughtfulness and sensitivity. The wedding couple themselves seemed completely unfazed by the occasion of the rehearsal dinner, simply basking in the anticipation of a moment they perhaps once thought would never arrive.

 

Jonathan, our son, was given the honor of saying “a few words” at the wedding celebration itself, while Megan’s mom, Katie, delivered heartfelt and joyous words at the rehearsal dinner. Katie is a published poet and is working on two different works of historical fiction, so her emotive well is deep.

 

Usually, I am not at a loss for words if I have time to think about them and then write them down. So I came prepared. Rather than describing my rehearsal-dinner “speech,” I include every word here. It sets the stage for the wedding itself and for the two wonderful people we were there to celebrate, honor, and, above all, love.

 

This is what I tried to carefully articulate, despite not being the world’s best public speaker:

 

“This is one of the happiest occasions in Ann’s and my life.

 

We have watched Chris make his way through the world for a very long time now, and it gives us enormous joy to see that journey bring him here, to Megan.

 

And to Megan: thank you for becoming such an important part of our lives. We already love you as a daughter. And thank you, John and Katie for raising such a warm, intelligent, and beautiful person.

 

For those of you who may not know Chris as well as we do, he has never believed life should be lived in only one lane. Over the years he has pumped gas, washed dishes at a Westport restaurant, starred on the soccer field, majored in philosophy (which, naturally, prepared him for a practical career path) and eventually found his footing in the computer and financial worlds. But beneath all of that, I suspect his true calling has always been that of a writer and observer of life.

 

And then, several years ago, somewhere in the great wilderness of online dating, Chris and Megan briefly crossed paths on eHarmony, only to lose touch. Fate, however, was apparently unwilling to leave matters there.  It arranged a second encounter on Bumble months later.

 

This time they actually met.  They had their first date at a north Boston Italian restaurant. And, as proof that some people are romantics after all, that is the very same restaurant where Chris proposed to Megan last year.

 

By then, of course, they had already built a life together during the pandemic years — sharing a home, laughter, companionship, and eventually Lily, our beloved grand-dog.

 

What Ann and I love most is who they are together. They make each other laugh constantly. They bring out a youthful joy that is contagious.

 

So in one sense, tomorrow changes nothing. And in another sense, it changes everything.

 

Because tomorrow is the public expression of something they already know privately and deeply: that after long and separate journeys through life, they found in one another a true companion.

 

All of us could not be happier for you both. So please raise your glasses to Chris and Megan, to love that arrived at exactly the right time, and to many wonderful years ahead together.”

 

I make reference to the serendipity of their “meeting” online. Indeed, they nearly didn’t find one another at all. It was Megan’s persistence, willing to respond again to Chris who hadn’t followed through the first time that changed everything.

 

The full story of their relationship is on their wedding site, aptly entitled “From SQL Servers to Soulmates.”   I am going to quote a little of it here because some parts of the story deserve to be highlighted. Megan’s humor and sensitivity shine through as well:

 

“Their love story almost never happened. When they first connected, Megan was exasperated by the dating scene and did not respond to Chris’s message quickly enough. Chris, equally weary of the online dating scene, took her silence as another instance of digital rudeness and moved on. Both went on with their lives, going on dates with well-intentioned, but dating-weary people, with little success.

 

And then months later, their lives crossed on another dating website. As Megan was swiping left and right on hundreds of profiles, she was met with the picture– yet again – of this cheerful bald man with the kind, smiling eyes. She thought “That’s the ass who didn’t email me back…but what the hell? What do I have to lose?”. So she swiped right. And her world has never been the same.

 

They met for their first date in Boston. Though both arrived incredibly nervous, they quickly discovered an unexpected sense of ease and connection that had eluded them on other dates. Both were able to see not just the quirkiness of one another, but a kindness as well. Megan talked about her love of dogs and her job as a psychologist. Chris made Megan’s eyes glaze over with his talk of SQL servers, but then made them perk up when he talked about his writing. They dined at a carefully chosen restaurant in the North End, followed by wandering around the city at night. By the end of the night, both had figured out that they had found someone special…..

 

But the most remarkable part of the six years that Megan and Chris have been together is how much they have changed as individuals. Both, in their own way, became more self-assured and confident in themselves. Some of their quirks faded, and for the ones that stuck, neither cares much what anyone else thinks. It seems that their life together helped them individually develop into the people they always hoped to be.”

 

This passage is quite a tribute to our son and his soulmate, Megan.

 

And so a typically delicious Ruth’s Chris dinner ensued, and close friends of the soon-to-be-married couple, the bride’s family, and ourselves merrily inched closer to the big next day.

 

We drove to The Barn together with Jonathan and Tracie, who were staying at the same hotel, via a labyrinth of rustic back roads. After hearty and emotional meet-and-greets and reunions, including seeing friends of Chris we hadn’t seen in a long time because we live so far away now, Kevin and Cathy, two of his oldest friends, and after libations and hors d’oeuvres, the one hundred or so guests, including us, were seated outside adjacent to the indoor venue.

 

Ann, Jon, Tracie, Carol

Me, Ann

There was a wedding cupola with seating, with the bride’s family and ours in the first two rows. Megan’s brother, Matt, walked Megan down the aisle. Brief readings were delivered by Chris’s mom, Carol, and two of Megan’s friends, and the ceremony was officiated by a longtime friend, John.

Matt and Megan

 

Chris and Megan wrote their own vows, too long to include here but deeply personal and emotional. But I will quote a few lines by Chris which particularly resonate:

 

“My promise to you speaks from this one heart as it did from the start:

 

To hold you as storms rage,

To shield you from the sun's age,

To stay with you until the turning of the Last Page.

 

I'll be by your side, Megan

This promise I make in full

Not words from me

But my heart to you.”

 

Chris delivered his words through tears of joy, while Megan smiled and, at one point, almost had to hold him up as his literary soulfulness and the baking sun took their toll. (My friend, Bruce, commented “Chris gets the Nobel Prize for vows.”)

 

It was touching, and there was not a dry eye among those gathered for this long-awaited moment in Megan and Chris’s lives.

 

Then we went back to the air-conditioned “barn” for a celebratory dinner and dancing.

 

Matt, Megan’s brother, gave a poignant speech about his sister and the joy their family felt on this occasion. His words were a fitting introduction to what followed, a speech written and delivered by Jonathan, Chris’s younger half-brother. It reveals much about their relationship and what this day meant to him:

 

“Standing here today, I think about the 11-year gap between us. When I was struggling to tie my shoes, Chris was already out in the world, becoming the caring, creative and inquisitive person we all know.

 

Chris, my earliest memory of you is your smelly soccer gear—sweaty socks and dirt-caked cleats. We remember watching you at St. Luke’s, the soccer team ace, playing with total grace and confidence. You were my role model—the smart college-bound athlete who also picked his little brother up from the bus stop.

 

I remember the summer you were at Clark, majoring in Philosophy. Mom, Dad, and I were vacationing on Block Island waiting for you. Since there was no direct bus from Worcester to the ferry at Point Judith, you decided to bicycle that entire 75 miles so you could join us. You arrived at the ferry dock, exhausted, but with a huge grin on your face. That night, after a lobster dinner at Ballard’s, you didn't collapse, but you got up and "danced the chicken" with the rest of us—clucking and flapping your wings, as if you hadn't just pedaled 75 miles! That was my brother—always giving everything for his family with still enough left in the tank to dance.

 

And then, in early adulthood, your journey took a few…’detours.’ …Well, in retrospect, those chaotic times were your creative writing fuel. You launched a blog years before it was mainstream and your writing was even published in a literary anthology!

 

Chris, you summoned up that tough athlete we saw on the soccer field. You picked yourself up and got back into the game—you earned your computer certifications, built a stable career, and landed yourself in a beautiful one-bedroom apartment in Boston….

 

And then, finally, dating-weary, and when you’d almost given up on finding someone to share your stories with, you found Megan.

 

Megan, in my Dad’s most recent book, he wrote that the most enduring songs are 'perfect marriage of melody and lyrics.' Chris had the words, but he hadn’t found the melody, until he met you! You both found your rhythm on that first date—where his computer talk made your eyes glaze over, but his creative writing made them perk up. You looked past the technical jargon and truly heard the caring man with the inquisitive spirit.

 

We saw the change in Chris almost immediately—he seemed settled and at home. We saw it in the kindness he showed your beloved dog Sophie in her old age patiently waiting for all her ‘sniffs’, and I see it now in your family with Lily, the dog from Mississippi who clearly hit the jackpot with you two!

 

I’ll conclude with a final “note.” In April of 2020, Chris, Megan, and my beautiful wife Tracie, celebrated Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary with tickets to the Broadway show “Company" in New York.

 

“Company” centers on Bobby, a late blooming bachelor who observes his friends navigate the complexities of marriage. Bobby’s awakening arrives with the song “Being Alive.” This is not a fluffy love song. Rather, it’s a raw realization that life sparkles with a partner who lets you ‘abandon your search,’ ‘forces you to care,’ and—most importantly—is ‘there’ for you. Chris, your path to Megan wasn’t easy, but those 75 miles you bicycled as a young man weren't just a physical feat—they were a preview of your amazing spirit!

 

So, if everyone could please raise a glass. To my big brother Chris, the philosopher-athlete who found his way home, and to my new sister Megan, the woman who gave him the music and showed him what “Being Alive” truly means.

 

To Chris and Megan!”

Jonathan, Chris

 

After dinner, the dance floor became electric, although the music was not exactly what my generation relates to. Ann and I can do the Lindy to just about anything, however, so in spite of our age, we were out there as well.

 

Chris wanted to do John Travolta’s Tony Manero one better and was dancing up a storm until he pulled a muscle in his thigh (and hamming up the moment as only he can).

Chris' Tony Manero Moment

 

Back story: He still plays competitive soccer in a league. But apparently those are not the same moves required on the dance floor. Some of his soccer friends, all teammates, rushed to him, fearful that he would not be ready for the league’s opening game in a couple of weeks. He was already feeling better after sitting out the gyrating number, so I’m confident they’ll have their fullback in peak form!

 

Because I do not mean to turn this into a journalistic account of the wedding, I’m going to allow the photographs I selected and sized for this entry to tell part of the story.  Some were taken by me; others were contributed by people who attended.

 

Katie and John, Megan's Parents

 

First Dance

Bonnie, Bruce, Me, Ann

 

Katie and Chris

Tracie and Jonathan

And then came the goodbyes.

 

They were more emotional than I expected. To see this married couple so happy, to meet our new in-laws and extended family, to partake in the festivities, to say goodbye to my longtime friend Bruce, with whom I have now been best friends for more than 60 years, and even to give a hug to my ex-wife, Carol, was overwhelming.  And, so, Ann and I left in the twilight.

 

There were so many kinds of closure in that one day. The distant past, the present, and all the years in between seemed, for a brief and extraordinary moment, to come together. And clearly, Providence gave its consent, providing a rainbow as we departed.