A Balm for a Bomb: from Norway to a wedding

Saturday I woke up to an even higher body count on the Norway shootings, and the news of Amy Winehouse's death. I guess we feel particularly sad when someone talented dies young,  maybe because they embody the lost potential of anyone who dies young. Which almost personalizes the tragedy that happened in Norway. Over an hour of teenagers being pursued and shot at. Over 80 children whose potential barely had time to show its face.

To shoot your own peers--teens killing teens, college students killing college students--makes perverse sense to me. To turn your gun on yourself at the end, because you hate yourself that much, makes perverse sense to me. For an adult to plan, maybe for years, and then gun down over 80 teenagers, and then calmly hand himself over to the police... that's a new one.


So, though we were still under The Heat Dome (it was 32C/90F),  I was glad to escape the news and attend a wedding. (Or as widdershins would say "I went to a heterosexual wedding this weekend!") Of two very very sweet people. Well, I don't know the bride very well, but everyone was crying over how sweet she is, so I think it's safe to say: The wedding of two very very sweet people.

Kaftan Man

I met the groom when we were fellow managers at my last job. He is honestly one of the kindest guys I've ever met. It's not fake, and it's not cause he's Kaftan Man, ready with a Kleenex and a Self Help Talk in a Low Tone. (Though he's probably in touch with his feminine side cause his best friend--who was Best Lady at the wedding--is a woman, and he did take Women and Social Issues in college, or so we were told by our table mate: "Groom likes to say it was a Humanities course, but it was Women and Social Issues.")

But he plays video games and loves Rush and reads Stephen King and can hold a debate about which is the best Indiana Jones movie. And pervading all this everyday-GUYness is kind-a-tude. He thinks about other people, doesn't want to hurt their feelings, remembers things about them, is gentle, and will do anything for you.

Since he was apparently marrying another kind, thoughtful person, this made for a weepy wedding.

When his beautiful bride...

Disney Princess Beautiful!

 ...finally appeared after a pause... which the priest filled with some jokes... and we filled with some of our own jokes... she spotted Groom and started to cry. And me and my pewmate (another old work pal) started to cry. And then I looked at Groom and he was totally tearing up (Best Lady rubbed his arm. She did her own balling later when she toasted them.)

No Proof of Groom Cry pics have surfaced yet.

Me crying, pewmate crying, bride crying, groom crying. Whole damned church just falling apart--you'd think one of them had been left at the altar.

OK at weddings.

When she reached the front, the priest wiped away his tears and chastised them for making everyone cry. He's known Bride for ages, and predicted these two would marry from the first time he met Groom. The priest was at the reception as well (at the very competitive Table 4 that kept giving us a run for our money in the MC's contests!!)    >:-(

Pewmate-ex-coworker and I were at the Most Excellent Fifth Table. Credit to Bride and Groom for how they worked out the table chemistry, c'ause we had a blast. There were the right number of outgoing people to keep the conversations going, if someone wanted to dance, someone would join them, and we scored The Funny Kid in the Classroom (the Women and Social Issues guy.) I was sitting next to his mother, one of the most intelligent and interesting people I've met in a long time (excluding online friends.) Basically, we were sitting at the children's table. Awesome.

Being at the children's table is not an age, it's a state of mind.

So... a teary and informal wedding ceremony, time to catch up with pewmate-ex-coworker, laughs, politics talk, a little dancing, good conversation, and happy tears. A room of 50 people, some who've lived out their potential, little ones with their lives ahead of them, many in the Amy Winehouse age-range who will hopefully be old grannies and gramps at future weddings. It was an escape from bad news, but it was the real world too. Love always exists alongside the bad. After all, losing 80 children wouldn't be a tragedy if someone didn't love them.

When I got home I had this song stuck in my head: "There is a Balm in Gilead. Not because it was played at church. Maybe it was the word balm/bomb. Maybe it was the idea of going somewhere to have your soul soothed.

Thanks again for the invite, Bride and Groom. :-)  Have fun on your honeymoon!

___________
Afternote:  When we bought a gift on the registry we had a choice between wood hangers or a garbage can. We chose the hangers, but decided we needed something extra. So the kittehs put together a box of toys for Bride and Groom's cat Whiskey.

Facebook pic from Groom's page