As the day of the ceremony got closer, we dug into the details of flowers, cake, decorations, tuxes, gifts to the wedding party, and attendees. And we worked on a secret that would only be revealed during the ceremony itself. We made the walk-through rehearsal dinner the night before, and on October 9, 1999, nearly a year after we met, we were ready to get married in our back yard. And, absolutely, we went overboard. It was, in a lot of ways, a first for both of us.
Of course, the best-laid plans tend to go awry. Or, as I’ve said before, God laughs. The temperature that day was over 100 degrees; the house did not have air conditioning. Someone loaded the garbage disposal with tea bags from the iced tea, which clogged the pipes requiring a plumber. I later learned our mothers were apprehensive about being walked down the aisle, and they weren’t feeling it. My Mom had to convince Wanda to do it. “I don’t necessarily agree with what they’re doing, either, but I’m going to be there for my son.”
I was upstairs in the master bed, getting dressed, looking out my window to the back yard. The seats on “my side” of the aisle were all in the blaring sun, and I couldn’t see anyone sitting there, and I couldn’t see the other side of the aisle from my room.
We mustered at opposite sides of the house, each with a gate into the back yard. The processional music played bringing our parents down the aisle and, once seated, “I do swear, That I will always be there. I’d give anything and everything, and I will always care…” our voices exploded from the speakers as we sang Shania Twain’s “From This Moment” to each other while walking up the side of the house and down the aisle. It was a special moment, one that caught our guests off guard and talked about for years to come. I remember during the interlude seeing my Mom crying, and I reached out to her. She squeezed my hand and smiled, and in that moment I thought everything was going to be alright. And even though, at this point in time, the ceremony wasn’t legal (registered domestic partnership notwithstanding), it was something we felt necessary to do in front of friends and family.
From that moment on, after the ceremony was complete, and we pledged our lives together, we did what we needed to do to honor those vows. My career was excelling, Bob was working in a career he enjoyed until a particular boss made it unenjoyable. He eventually left the job and took a position in retail, with IT jobs being scarce in the area. One day, he re-inflamed an old injury in his back from when he was an EMT. Surgery was required to fix the issue, but the scar tissue kept him in constant pain and unable to work.
