Consider This

By LC Van Savage

And May Your Troubles All Be Small Ones

A friend’s daughter is marrying soon, and Mongo and I may actually go, although weddings have never been high on our list of Do-Not-Misses. We’ve never met the daughter or her intended, but we’re very fond of the parents so we may put our prejudices aside and go to see the young ‘uns, Oliver and Emily, pledge eternal love and fidelity.

I’m about to send this young blushing couple-to-be a card with a gift, but have decided to not search around for one of those drippy motivational lacy cards talking about walking down life’s highways on rainbows together or swimming amongst clouds, stars and eternal sunlight with little tuxedoed and bridal-begowned bears. No, I’ve decided to enclose a letter with my gift, to wish them practical things, not impossible. The gloriosky post wedding stuff, as we all know, soon pops into the atmosphere like so many gas bubbles and reality crashes down like the hood of a car. Love remains of course, but it’s different; different focuses, different plans, and a much bigger and better friendship.

So here’s my gift to young Oliver and Emily and these wishes are sent to them with all the love I can muster for two people I have never met. I hope they come true, because the Waterford crystal gets soon packed away and stored and no one, absolutely no one wants to polish sterling. I call this my “May You” or perhaps it’s my “May Your” list and here it is, Emily and Oliver. Far more practical than rose petals on your pillows, and string quartets outside your window. The petals will shrivel and blow away and the quartet guys want payment. Here goes;

May your dishwasher always be empty. Ditto your washing machine and grass catcher and laundry baskets. Garbage pails too. May your tire pressure always be correct and your gas tank always full. May you always get up out of the dentist’s chair and walk out with a bewildered shrug from the good doctor of dentistry because she can’t find a single thing wrong with your perfect teeth. May you never pass some kids selling lemonade without stopping to buy a cup or two. May it never rain on your vacations. Or on your picnics. May you always find a pen and a pad of paper when the phone rings and an important message must be taken down. And in fact may your phone never ring before 11 AM or after 9 PM because as we all know, calls before 11 AM are always from people who want something, and calls after 9 PM are always bad news. May you and your spouse never get into a brawl over unimportant things. May your basement, attic, closets, garage always be clean, swept and orderly. May you see all wasps and mosquitoes, no-see-‘ems, Japanese beetles and leaves blow over to your neighbor’s yard every day. May your bill drawer be always empty. May you never find an unexplained lump on your body anywhere. May you never see a doctor suddenly frown during your physical. May you always know the right thing to say and may you never say the wrong thing. May all your dinners be gourmet triumphs. May you get all spots out of everything you spill those spots on. May your bathroom scale always send up low numbers. May the waistbands on all your clothes never get snug or snugger. May your glasses prescriptions never change. May all the ice and snow on your driveway, walkways and around your mailbox melt away instantly. May the grass on your lawn never grow more than 3 inches high, all crabgrass turn back into your neighbor’s lawn, and may no weeds ever stray over the borders and onto your property.

May your sheets always be clean, your towels and washcloths and clothing too, folded and put away. May your socks always come out even from the dryer, may they never get holes in them and may your underwear never become transparent. May your carpet never get spotted. May you furnish and decorate your home one time perfectly and never want to change it until you leave it for your perfect condo when you’re both in your eighties which you’ll furnish and decorate perfectly until you both leave for the assisted living home and then, and then, and then.

May those annoying free-loading relatives lose your phone number and address and those of all the contacts they’d call to get them from. May all the dogs and cats who decorate your lawn at night when they’re secretly let out, only decorate their owner’s lawns. And paths. And gardens. And livingroom carpets. And houseplants. And bathmats. And bedspreads.

May all the mirrors in your life be gently fogged. May everyone who smokes near you, not. May you always have a brilliant quip or fully researched profound answer to every remark right on time and may they be devastating when necessary.

When you both decide to make a family, may you always produce perfect, brilliant, respectful and mannerly children. May your diapers always be folded---ooops, cloth diapers are antiques these days I guess. Well then, may your diaper supply never run dry. (Sorry.) May your babies sleep through the night in their first week of life. May your kids never need braces. May all your visits to their teachers be unembarrassing. May all their athletic games be on warm days and always in the afternoons. May they never put a cigarette into their mouths or some other illegal recreational stuff into their bodies. May you never get a phone call from a helpful cop asking you to come on down to the station to pick up your teenager.

May all your gaffes and faux pas be immediately forgotten. May your words always bring solace and joy and smiles to the hearers. May your home always be perfectly presentable, especially when unexpected guests arrive and may you never have unexpected guests. May you keep current with all the new books and read all the classics too, but may you only quote from them sparingly. May your troubles be small and your successes huge. May you share of your income with those who don’t have anything to share. May you never hear the words fatal or terminal or disease or root canal. May you never have to create a science project 12 hours before it’s to be turned in because your beloved child “forgot about it.” May you save a life and may yours be saved. May all the music you hear, and that includes from passing cars, be music you love and music you are moved by. May your scissors always be sharp and your mind too. May you never hear your kids ask you where their shoes are. May you always know where your flashlights and tools are. May you never hear a horrifying crash in your home when you have to stay perfectly still for an instant to try to process which child smashed which Ming vase. May you gasp in surprise and joy at every museum painting you see. May you live long enough and in robust health to be a real PITA to your grown kids and may they love you anyway. May your bed be so big and so comfortable that you can’t wait to get into it at night, or anytime. May you have all the creature comforts you want and need. May you never have short or long-term memory loss, or unknowingly scramble your words, saying thing like, “Please pass the armadillo” when you know perfectly well you meant to say “motor scooter.”

And Emily and Zach, may your marriage be long, fruitful, glitch-free, tragedy free, divorce free, stumbling free, poverty free, and overwhelmingly happy with countless rainbows full of chocolate symphonies with exciting understandable poetry read aloud to each other at eventide, long playtimes, wasted times, sillinesses, romping, long walks to nowhere, long conversations and endless, wrinkle causing, head back, raucous, always and ever laughter.