July in Idaho, El Fin

As the day of my niece's wedding approached, other out-of-town family members started to pour in.  2 of my brothers rode in on their chariots and Kitty was able to take her very first motorcycle ride.  She was nervous at first but came back hyped about how much fun she had. I went for a ride on my brother's Indian and all I could manage to utter was, "Holy crap, I'm gonna die!"  I've never been on a bike with so much power.  We zipped through the summer air and it was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.

But then we had to get down to business; wedding business.  Have you ever put on a wedding luncheon?  There's only one word for it: work.  There was ironing galore, food prep galore, and quality time together galore.  This is what we do for family...we show up and we work.  And then we eat.

On the morning of the wedding we all gathered at the temple and were promptly politely asked to stop talking so loudly.  That's another thing we do.  I loved sitting in the waiting area with my siblings that I don't get to see often enough.  It was especially sweet to be in the temple with them.

Do you want to know the crazy thing that happened next?  

My niece was married.  I couldn't wrap my brain around it.  I sat there looking into her face and her entire life swirled through my mind.  She's been an integral part of my world since her birth.  For all of the heartbreaking years that I didn't have a child of my own, she and her siblings were like my children.  I certainly bossed them around as much as their own mother did.  Sleepovers at my house, summers spent at their house, milestones of life, I was present for all of it.  And now here I was, sitting in a sealing room in the temple, watching her join her life with someone else, making the transition to wife.

And that's when I started sobbing.  It wasn't just a little tear trickling down my face, it was full on ugly-crying.  They weren't tears of sadness.  They were tears of disbelief, wonderment at how fleeting the years are, and then tears of incredible joy that I've had a front-row seat to her life.

After the ordinance, we stood outside the temple waiting for the couple to emerge, and my thoughts jumped again to Kate as a child, to those precious and vanished years.  I yearned just a bit for the child-Kate to emerge from the temple.  But that's not who walked through those exit doors.  

Mrs. Green did.    

It was just as it should be.

So what did we do next?

We celebrated.  And we ate enough carnitas and chocolate cake to stuff a horse.

And then we went on a sibling bike ride to close out the day.

It was just as it should be.