"God has been good to our family."
My husband and I sat on his parents bed the night before we were to fly home to Chicago. As the pale blue walls and air conditioner kept the warm stickiness of the Thai night at bay, my new father-in-law reflected on the previous couple weeks. With a contented sigh, he stated, “God has been good to our family.”
*****
A mere three weeks earlier, I had been in Chicago standing on an unsteady ladder shouting obscenities at a tiny nail which refused to detach itself from the wall I was about to paint. At the time, I had no thoughts of being pampered, dressed and draped in gold and silk, fed fresh fruit and vegetables till my bursting point... I had no concept of being introduced and crushed into perfume scented hugs, no thought of smiling till the muscles in my face stiffened and cramped... I had yet to think of the moment in which I would settle my hand for the first time into that of my husband’s. Rather, my entire being was focused on that stupid f*#@ing nail and how I couldn’t move on to the next task on my ever growing list until it came out of the wall. I realized maybe I had taken on slightly more than I could handle. Perhaps it was not wise to pick the remaining two weeks before the wedding to level the floors, move my things (including the 687 lb piano,) paint and ready my “bachelorette pad” for the next bachelorette, manage my petite youth choir annual holiday sing along, maintain my usual herd of students, rehearse and sing multiple masses, and yet still have time to take in deep breaths while reminding myself of my impending bridalness. With a hot flushed face and anger induced shaky hands, I raised my hammer intending to destroy the wall around the nail when my future husband chose that moment to wander into my apartment with McDonalds fries. Upon quickly noting my rage, he hastily stated that there was no need to stress as we could simply rent the apartment for an extra month to allow time to finish everything off upon our return from Thailand. I teetered between the need to bludgeon him with my hammer and the desire to tell him that he was the most beautiful creature on earth before finally settling somewhere in between with french fries and sniffles.
From that point on, things fell into place without the need for an extra month’s rent; nails fell gracefully out of walls, pale yellow paint glided smoothly on, the piano sailed up icy back stairs (with the help of some EXTREMELY strong men and hot chocolate,) my youth choir brightened the day for many retirement home residents, Christmas eve masses were sung (though not my best work,) bags were packed by 3am and Christmas morning found me in a Lorazapan induced stupor holding my fiancé's hand in a death grip aboard a large plane hurling itself at Thailand.
*****
On any given Sunday after a mass in which I am the cantor, I can be known to randomly hum the music...incessantly! The morning after our Christmas Eve masses was no exception, much to the detriment of those sitting around me for the first 14 hour leg of our journey. My internal soundtrack was limited to the alto part of the chorus to ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High,’ on loop and occasionally a note or two would slip out without my knowledge. After what must have been approx. 14,786 verses of playback, we safely landed in South Korea, home of the 2002 World Cup, and ironically in 2003, the second greatest importer of U.S. beef. I suspect that there is actually a very small number of vegetarians rushing off to tour South Korea (and North Korea as well..) as even tiny innocent looking edibles manage to have beef stuffed inside somewhere. Despite, the overabundance of post-moo food and a soon-to-be husband standing gleefully in line at KFC, I was impressed by Seoul’s airport with it’s abundance of orchids and extremely zen bathrooms.
Six hours and two trashy romance novels later, our second plane landed smoothly just outside of Bangkok; 10:30 pm local time, 10:30 am Chicago time and about 24 hours after our journey began. Ameya and I stepped off the plane, took deep breaths and threw ourselves into the awaiting insanity...
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