Life and Death and Love continue to survive in spite of these extreme times. In this past week we experienced sitting shiva via Zoom in honor and memory of Richard Kitt, a beloved family member who died suddenly on Long Island on March 30th. It is certainly not the same as being together in person but it something at least.
Yesterday as my husband and I took a walk on the deserted campus of nearby Siena College, we noticed several cars parked in one area of the campus. People got out of their vehicles and greeted each other jovially albeit at a distance. There were a couple of young men dressed in suits and one of them had a flower in his lapel. As we walked up an incline I got excited to see a young woman dressed in a lovely white dress. She was holding a small bouquet of flowers and a photographer, standing at a “safe” distance, was taking her picture. “ Bob”, I said, “ I think it is a wedding! Can’t we hang around for a little while and watch to see what’s going to happen? “ After all, to put it mildly, our schedule has been rather loose lately. Bob, forever a man of action, replies, “ Ah come on Mary, I have a lot of things to do today and we don’t even know these people.” I remind him that everything is closed up tighter than a drum and there is literally no where to go and nothing to do. Nevertheless, I follow behind Bob as he starts to head back to our car which is parked across Route 9 in the Town Hall parking lot. As we are approaching our vehicle, I make a decision. I’m just about ready to say aloud “ Bob, I’ll drop you at home, but I’m coming back to find the wedding. At that very moment Bob speaks first and says,
“ I’ll drive you back down Spring Street and I’ll wait in the car while you go to investigate. “ I feel immediately flooded with joy. I love Bob a lot at that moment as my spontaneous answer is “ Hurray! Just call me Rita.” Bob knows exactly what I mean, he knew my mother well.
I jump in the passenger side of the car and we dash back down to the spot on Spring St. where I first saw the joyful young woman dressed all in white. There is no one there and I feel discouraged and disappointed. Nonetheless, I ask Bob to pull up to one of the loved gates. I quickly ask him if he wants to come search for the wedding with me and as he says “ no” , he proceeds to open his cellphone and start playing on Facebook as I jump out of the car, run around the locked gate and proceed to look for the bride. In less than a short city block, I’m rewarded!! There, right before me, in a beautiful grotto lowered into the landscape, I see the wedding. It is a very tiny wedding ( less than 10 people) and the people there are following the rules for social distancing. I feel tears welling as I stand there and watch this beautiful expression of love. There is a young woman in the backyard maybe 20 feet away and I nod to her and say how this is touching my heart. She answers “ the groom is my brother”. To hear lifelong vows shared in this simple, beautiful way in the midst of such unprecedented worldwide upheaval was an amazing gift to me. It is hard to explain the feeling, you had to experience it firsthand. Sadly, Bob sat in the car a few hundred feet away and missed the whole thing.
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