The first 40 years are the hardest...or so I hope!

In our church, parishioners take turns hosting the Fellowship Hour that follows the last Sunday service each week. Early in each year a sign-up sheet magically appears, and it's amazing to me how quickly the available dates get filled. This year, I noticed that one of the Fellowship Hours fell exactly on August 10th, Dave's and my anniversary, and so, like the dummy I am, I signed us up for it.

Did I mention it was our 40th anniversary? A rather significant number, I thought. We married young, obviously, though he is MUCH older than I am (he was born in June, I in September... of the same year.) We missed out on any big celebration for all the five year milestones from 25 to 40. We had planned to go to Michigan to celebrate our 25th anniversary with our families there but something prevented that from happening: I was hired as a full-time, tenure-track instructor by Motlow College. Kinda hard to start a new job in Tennessee if you are in the Great Lake State, so I didn't attempt it. Jeez, was that really 15 years ago? It seems much longer.

Anyhoo, I remember my mom and dad's 25th anniversary party. My sibs and I threw it for them. My sister got us the use of the community room of the apartment complex where she was living at the time. We split the cost between the five of us, and Sue and I prepared most of the food ourselves. Aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, they all showed up and everyone had a great time. No one got drunk, there were no fights, and for one day, at least, Mom and Dad seemed to really like each other. It was very nice.

I hoped our 25th would be as nice. It wasn't. I missed out on love-fest, which made my new career start off on a bittersweet note. (The purely bitter notes would come later.)

I was not up to travel after the surgery or we could have gone to Michigan to celebrate our anniversary. Instead, I signed us up for the Fellowship Hour. Who better to celebrate an occasion like that than with your parish family and friends?

So I ordered a ton of food from Kroger and actually ordered a wedding cake that kinda sorta looked like the one we had had 40 years ago. We could both eat sugar back then, so we ate our wedding cake. THIS cake we just glared at.

Our daughter flew in from San Diego for the occasion. Several of my dear friends came to the service, as did my son and his family. Kelly and Dave did most of the heavy lifting in getting the food set up. Mama stayed with them in the parish hall while I went to mass.

The only glitch so far had come early in the day when I arrived with Mama and the wedding cake and found two women setting up for fellowship hour. The good ladies had gotten their dates mixed up. Their attitude suggested that they expected me to pack away my goodies and get out of their way, but I explained the realities of perishable, non-freezable foods, an expensive three tiered cake, and that fact that it was my 40th anniversary and I had signed up for this date months ago. They very graciously packed up their goodies and stored them in the church freezer but the whole rest of the day, I felt like I should be apologizing to them. Don't ask.

Once that little snafu was sorted, I left the set-up in Dave and Kelly's capable hands and joined friends and family in the church. Mama did not come with me. Mama stayed with Dave and Kelly.

Marcia and her whole family, looking handsome one and all, filled a pew. Shelia was there. The Gilliams and the Simms were due to show up after the service. I started feeling the stress lifting and fell into the service. I love the service. It helps you get your head and heart straight for the rest of the week.

Time came for communion. I was sitting fairly close to the front, so I was among the first to go to the altar. I took communion and returned to my pew feeling peaceful and blessed.

God as my witness, I did not know Mama had come into the church. I did not see her from the altar as I returned to my pew but I certainly saw her as she made her fragile, pathetic, Sarah Bernhardt approach to the altar. She was calling upon all and sundry to help her up the aisle. She loudly asked for Wilma to help her up the steps, which, God bless her, Wilma did. She went to the altar. She stood to take communion. She turned, sat down in the choir pew, and blithely listened to Nelda on the organ.

Jim, the dapper usher, looked dumb-founded but I was already on my feet, headed for Mama. I helped her out of the choir seat, helped her down the steps, and guided her to my pew. She was, from start to finish, the center of attention, which, of course, was the point. As Father finished feeding his flock, Mama made the periodic comment... "I'm blind as a bat"; I really must investigate sonar for Mama.

No harm, no foul. The congregation is used to, if not on to, Mama. We repaired to the parish hall. That's when it hit me that maybe hosting the coffee hour on your special day is not the smartest thing in the world to do. The hall was packed!

But the hall looked lovely. Dave and Kel had worked almost two hours to set everything out, make the coffee and punch, etc. I had brought from home a decorative ceramic church, and a bride, groom, and minister I had ordered from Miniatures.com to serve as the centerpiece on the cake table. The cake was gorgeous. Three tiers, two of which disappeared so fast I thought Houdini was in the crowd. It was really pretty. You will just have to take my word for that.

Why? Did any of us remember to bring a camera? Of course not. Fortunately, Sandie and Robert swung by after their service ended, and Sandie came prepared so we do have some very nice pictures of the tail end of our "party".

After clean-up and pack up, we all headed to the house and jumped in the pool. Dave grilled steaks and brats and Mama ate like she'd never seen food before. We all had a great time. The only sour note to the day was this: we got no cards or emails or calls from anyone in my family. My dad, my sister, my brothers... not a word from any of them. We did, however, get a great deal of affectionate attention from our kids and grandkids.

We have great friends. We really have made a life here in this tiny little town in middle Tennessee. We have been here 28 of our 40 years together. This is home.

Now, I will share some of Sandie's shots with you. Remember me telling you about the bride and groom, etc. for the centerpiece? Well, sometime during the proceedings, the young thin groom was replaced with George (from my dollhouse).

You will notice the groom is not longer young and slim, and, yes, that is a beer in his hand. One of the little old ladies at the Fellowship Hour was offended by that, but the priest thought it was funny. Who was the jokester, you may ask? Well, I won't reveal her name, but her initials are Kelly Lapczynski.

Here I am, almost done with my part of the clean-up.

Mama, being helpful.

Thank you to all our friends and family- especially Kelly, in her starring role as waitress/scullery maid- for making the day so very special.