The Night Before the Wedding

The house is full this week. The photos are taken. Smiles are stretched. My face definitely hurts. Wedding songs flooded the rooms and conversations have overlapped. I have always loved a full house.

We have prepared for this wedding for almost a year and a half and through the whole process (writing your name on the invitation; not writing your name on the table card; realizing you won't be at my wedding either; accepting that any future kids will never get kisses from their Nana Ji), I thought of you. I wondered how you would have handled your eldest daughter's wedding. Would you have been excited? Would you have cried? I'm almost glad you never had to stress over food arrangements and countless clothing trials. You would have definitely hated that and refused to see another color combination.

But now that the wedding is tomorrow, the year and a half worth of feelings will condense into a single weekend. I will miss you holding our shaking hands (because they will shake). I will miss whatever words of wisdom you may bestow on Didi. I will miss whatever joke you may have cracked to ease the tension. I will miss hugging you in the early morning and breathing in your cologne and feeling safe. I will miss you reminding us to sleep early (I'm sorry that I'm still up). I will miss the silly pictures we would have taken in the photo booth. I will miss you driving us there.

We will miss the way you made everything feel complete. And though our home is full and we are all so happy and we will keep figuring the things out that life keeps chucking at us, we will feel your absence. Especially this weekend. Especially tomorrow.

I hope we do you proud, Papa. I really, really, really wish you were here.

Another wedding, five years ago.
June 1, 2013, Canada