A Tribute
When my parents met, my mother was walking down a spiral staircase in a white dress. She was twelve. He was fifteen. She was well-endowed with big breasts and a killer smile. He had feathered hair and a nervous knee. My mother told me that she started developing when she was nine—like some prepubescent freak show of a girl. Now I suppose she’d admit that her curves worked in her favor. My curves, alternatively, did not work in my favor. But that story is for another time.
The next time my father saw her walking toward him in a white dress was twenty-four years ago today. She was pregnant with child. She was pregnant with me. Their wedding was small, no billowing crowd of prettily-dressed guests. Just two kids hopelessly in love, marrying against his mother’s wishes. There was an order to things. There was a reputation at stake. But they were gut-wrenchingly in love—everything else was secondary. And so they found a quiet courthouse on a quiet hill and quietly said their vows. My mother told me I kicked when she kissed my father on the mouth. But that was just a precursor to my twenties. I realize now why I am such a sap.
One day I will get married and walk toward him in a white dress too. I might be pregnant with child or it might be quiet and modest in a tiny chapel on a hill. Because when you witness that kind of love between two of the most important human beings in your life, that kind of love that transcends terminal illness, living on $4 in a Chicago suburb, fighting tirelessly against a world that tells you otherwise—you are certain that it is out there. Even for you. And when it comes, you realize your mother was right. She was always right. Even these words will never quite repay her the credit she deserves.
