Back in college my Mom hovered between the impulse to write down what she was feeling, and floating away from such ties to earth. Fortunately for me, sometimes the pen won.

 

"Thoughts on the eve of announcing one's engagement- my mind is reduced to prayer alone. This moment seems such utter completion that I can only ask God that it is real and that it will continue. I shall never forget the last evening at the church, and a fantastic wind and lightning storm was raging. I had no concrete way of knowing whether I was on earth or in heaven. We stood together under the archway with the wind tearing around us, and the instant was eternal and so crystal and detached that I can scarcely remember it now. We were so one- and then we went to our favorite stairway, and under a flashing sky, I had a vision more or less of what it would mean to live to eternity itself. You can think of tomorrow and eternity with equal hope and confidence and happiness when he is to be there. I no longer force on myself the horror of losing him or failing him- then we came to our yard amidst mosquitoes and lightning bugs, discovered how crazy in love we are. Oh it must, must last. And I will give thanks."

 

The evening that John and I announced our engagement held its own magic. There was a crowd of our dearest friends on my cousin's front lawn. My father stood on the porch steps and spoke in his softhearted way about his youngest daughter and the young man who had asked for her hand. Dad had known his share of storms since that night in 1947. Indeed he was hours away from putting the love of his life in a mental hospital again. But he had been there under the archway too... he knew how thin the veil between heaven and earth really is. 

 

There are over four thousand pictures on my screen saver. Two of them are from that party. One is of John and me and another is of my father. As I looked up just now... there he was.