Marital Bliss (or, Back in the Blogosphere After the Marriage Break or, What Have I Done?!)

As you know, the month of December has been quite the connubial experience for me, to say the least. I married my best friend on the 9th and the whole week leading up to it was full of good times and memories with friends and family. The snow made things a little tough to get around, but fortunately was not enough to bring things to a halt completely.

My younger brothers arranged for the bachelor party to happen up in Denver with all of the groomsmen in attendance. At the hotel, they made me wear a long silvery dress/skirt, a black afro wig, and some sort of colourful scarf. The highlight of the evening for everyone was meeting a drunken computer tech entrepreneur in an Irish pub just outside the walls of Coors Field and chatting with him about life, spirituality, philosophy, and Cuban cigars. He even invited us upstairs to his luxury apartment for some billiards and further fellowship.

The wedding itself was brilliant. Kristy and I were both blessed to have so many friends and family working so hard to make it all come together as well as it did. My good friend and pastor, Marc Johnson, did a great job officiating and another good friend and mentor, Jim Adkins, did a fine job sharing a few thoughts from Ephesians. Jim’s daughter also performed the special music beautifully.

One of the only blips on the radar was a flu bug that my mom picked up the night before and had a hard time shaking off. Fortunately, she was able to drag herself to the ceremony with the help of my faithful and dependable father. My sister-in-law, the beautiful and amiable Iris Wellcome, stepped in to fill in for my mom in lighting the family candles with Kristy’s mom.

On the way to the reception in Kristy’s dad’s 1971 Buick GS (not the one in the link picture), we were stopped at a traffic light after getting off the freeway when people behind us from the wedding party began honking and making a bunch of celebratory racket. All of a sudden, we began to hear the low droning of some sort of horn, like the kind made out of ivory that you hear in tribal contexts. Sure enough, we looked over a few lanes and this car full of men were blowing on these large horns out the windows and yelling “Blessings in the name of the Lord!” Kristy asked what they were and they answered back that they were shofars and that they were meant to be blown as a blessing. It was the most random, unexpected, skin-tingling blessing I’ve ever experienced!

The reception was a lot of fun and people seemed to enjoy the chocolate fountain. My two brothers (the best men) took their toasting/speech responsibility and turned it into an embarrassing, albeit creative and unique, account of our hiking trip this last summer in Yosemite. (I ended up in the emergency room due to dehydration.) Their warning to Kristy: Keep this boy hydrated! After this brief conclusion, they handed me a Camel Back that they’d purchased together.

The honeymoon was also brilliant. The most relaxing vacation I’ve ever had. Swimming, snorkelling, skiing, hiking, etc. We even took a day to get away from the resort and tour the island of St. Lucia. The trip back, however, is another story.

It consisted of island hopping on a plane with Liat and, after arriving in Antigua, our flight to Puerto Rico was delayed for about 2½ hours. We finally arrived in San Juan and missed our connecting United flight to Philadelphia by about 15 minutes. The lady behind the desk booked us new flights to Philly, via Charlotte. We arrived in Philadelphia close to midnight, as opposed to the original 6.30pm arrival time. Kristy and I added some things up in the midst of the waiting, the impatience and the anxiety: Six airports in eighteen hours straight of travel. Flights to Europe suddenly didn’t seem so bad. I was happy to have my new wife with me. And James Joyce.

While waiting for our luggage in Philly and looking forward to what few hours of sleep we had ahead of us, Kristy got a phone call from someone named Lorrain in Connecticut to explain to us that she had our luggage in Hartford and that hers had gotten switched with ours. After going back and forth at the US Airways baggage centre and over the phone, it was explained to us that our luggage would get sent to Chicago and on to Denver to meet us there.

After three hours of sleep in the hotel, our flight for Denver, via Chicago, left at 6am from Philadelphia. (In the same clothes we’d worn all day previously. Gotta love that.) Upon arriving in Denver, we anxiously waited for our luggage. Kristy’s suitcase finally came through, but there was no sign of my own. After waiting to see if it would come up from another flight from Denver, we again reported to the baggage claim centre and hoped for the best. We left the airport without my luggage and today, 3 days later, I am without 75% of my summer clothes, both casual and formal, the digital camera with all of our honeymoon pictures, a travel case of CD’s, a bottle of premium St. Lucian rum, and a brand new Samsonite suitcase that Kristy and I received in a 3-piece set from my parents as a wedding gift. As each day passes, hope fades for having these things returned.

So, for the last three days, my moods have randomly toggled from enraged, frustrated, and perplexed over my lost luggage to content, happy, and expectant as I’ve enjoyed the freshness and newness of marriage and companionship. Once in a while, I’ll be reminded of a favourite shirt or CD or a cell phone charger that was in my lost luggage and I’ll again do battle with frustration and anger. All the while, I know deep inside that God wants to speak to me and remind of me of what clothes and CD’s are actually worth in the Kingdom economy that I belong to more than I belong to this world. I know this cognitively, but I’m convinced that it’s only through life experiences such as these that I really come to take the most profound ownership of that truth.

The good news? On December 9th, 2005, I married my best friend. And I now have a companion to do this adventure of life with, arm in arm. Dang it. I just remembered that my Coldplay “X&Y” CD was in my luggage. Pray for me.

Categories: life