When you come to the End of a Perfect Day - Sunday Scribblings - "Wedding"

This Week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings, in honour of the wonderful Megg, who is being married soon, is "Wedding". How often do I begin my scribblings with a ramble about how I didn't think I'd be writing anything on that prompt, and then....? I really didn't think I'd be writing anything this week. Well... my marriage didn't endure, and so I'm often inclined to use the "F-word" about it... No, not THAT F-word. - But "Failure". After 19-and-a-half years, my marriage "failed".

But, but, but... it succeeded in so many ways. Our vows - the ones that mattered to me, the ones from our Baha'i ceremony - were not "til death do us part", but that we would abide by the Will of God. And for reasons I may never fathom, that seems to have been that we should be a couple for long enough to have our son, to raise him in love and unity, and that then, we should part.

Our wedding was on 30th July 1983. At the end of the evening, my father sang this song. [Listen to the YouTube version played on Victrola above]

A PERFECT DAY (1909).Words and Music by Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862-1946), who resided in Iron River Michigan in the 1890s, until her husband died...

When you come to the end of a perfect day,

And you sit alone with your thought,

While the chimes ring out with a carol gay,

For the joy that the day has brought,

Do you think what the end of a perfect day

Can mean to tired heart,

When the sun goes down with a flaming ray,

And the dear hearts have to part?

Well, this is the end of a perfect day,

Near the end of a journey, too,

But it leaves a thought that is big and strong,

With a wish that is kind and true.

For mem'ry has painted this perfect day

With colors that never fade,

And we find at the end of a perfect day,

The soul of a friend we've made.

........................It was a perfect day. I married the man I loved.

We were surrounded by the people who loved us. My mother and his father, who have since passed away, were with us. For a very long time after our parting, I could not look at our wedding album, but I've just leafed through it and found myself feeling so happy for the joy we had on that day. There are tears too, but I have always cried at weddings.

Perhaps this might seem a strange way to wish a Bride and Groom well as they begin their life together - to reflect on a marriage that did not endure, but I hope that on their wedding day, Megg and Mark are happy, happy, happy. As happy as I was on ours.

----------------------------------

There are more weddings over at Sunday Scribblings.