WONDERFUL

So we survived the fourth of July wedding. It know that Peter was very nervous at first, driving to the wedding. Of course it was a really long Catholic wedding with a lot of standing up and kneeling and standing up again. I kind of felt sorry for the priest because he was like, "Do you promise to raise your future children Catholic? You promise, right? Yup, you said it and now you have to."

Whenever we attend christenings and weddings, the priests do act a bit harrumphy about all the people the Catholic Church has lost over the years, especially when people are supposed to go up and take communion, and he tells everyone not to come up if you're not prepared -- and then only five people go up.

We did the receiving line and Peter kind of hesitated before going up to his sister, and he almost turned around to walk away, but she acted very normally and thanked us for coming. Later, at the reception, Peter's nephew was kind of all goofy around Peter, as if they were still very close. I guess he just doesn't get it. We showed up because it was an obligation, but it's difficult when people who have acted in an awful manner in the past assumes everything is okay just because you show up at his wedding. There's a large disconnect there.

I think that it was a bit healing for Peter to see everyone one last time. He doesn't think that we will see his older sister's family ever again. I'm still processing what happened, so I'll post more about the wedding later on.

The nicest thing happened. We were sitting at this table with an older gentleman, someone whose wife had worked with Peter's sister about 45 years ago. I was a little tipsy (after downing four drinks as soon as we got there) and talked with him about all sorts of things. At some point I went to the bathroom and Peter said that while I was gone, this guy said to him:

"I've met a lot of people in my life, but that woman you're with? She's WONDERFUL."

And then when Peter told him that we were married, he said:

"Oh! Now THAT makes sense!"

And then he went on and on about how lucky Peter was, which was really sweet. Dealing with Peter's family is really trying because no one seems to want to get to know me and whenever I reach out to people, it's met with nothingness. So it's so affirming when other people say: Hey! You're WONDERFUL.