Daddy's Speech

I loved my dad's speech during my sister's wedding last November 2005. First, he pointed out how the day rekindled past emotions on when he was walking down the same aisle to get married with my mom walking alongside him as his, then, bride to be.

You see, my sister was married on the 30 years and 5 days after my parents got married, in the same church at that!

I was too busy and a quite flustered attending to my duties as maid of honor -- assisting my sister with her gown during & after the ceremony, taking note of all my sister's instructions for the reception, etc.--- that I hadn't realized the additional significance of that date and place to my parents.

What's beautiful was what he said about how he remembered that 3o years before, walking down that same aisle, he felt that freedom and restriction at the same time because of of his decision to finally get married to my mother. I don't recall his exact words, but it was something like feeling the freedom of making such a big and valuable decision in his life choosing to spend the rest of his life with one person (which eventually led to having 7 more people in his life :D) at the same time, of course, being well aware of the restricions that come with the conviction of really standing by his decision.

...Which leads me to his other beautiful point that came out more as a piece of advice to the newlyweds and anyone else planning on doing the proverbial marital jump.

He shared his theory or 'suspicion' as to why a lot of marriages do not last. The idea he had lie precisely on the principle of making such a big decisions and standing by it. He surmised, that maybe somehow, those couples did not take marriage and their vows seriously. They did not quite realize before they entered into marriage that it is indeed something where you're not supposed to have the option to just up an leave when things get difficult or when you suddenly change your mind.

He definitely knows what he's talking about. Because I'm sure my parents' relationshiop is not all rosy and blissful. They have their share of differences and problems. But they've endured. They chose to be together and love each other, no matter what. I know in spite of everything, they're still being together, is not so just for the sake of the bond of their marriage. But because they still choose to be together and love each other because it is their promise to each other.

I so agree that marriage is something not to be entered into lightly. That it is a decision one should know and consider as something one can never back out of once it's made. Just on that idea, I do hope to find a man like my dad. Someone who values marriage the same way my dad does.

On that note, I'd like to end this entry with something i keep getting from forwarded emails that I do believe in. It goes....

Falling in love is not by choice but by chance;

Staying in love is not by chance but through work;

Falling out of love is not by chance, but by choice.

lll