just say yes to the memory

Sometimes the impact or significance of an experience doesn't hit us until much much later when you have had ample time to reflect, joke, reminisce, obtain distance and with that then clarity or understanding. And yet in other moments we feel the depth of the event as it marks us, alters or adds to who we are and how we see the world... ("the secret that know one knows - the root of the root - the bud of the bud - and the sky of the sky")

I hadn't known that junior year of high school, while wasting away the morning minutes, as was our soccer team tradition, that writing in permanent marker, "Hannigan drinks her own pee," would be a memory I would be laughing about with that good friend ten years later. We are amused at the recollection of just how frantically I tried to erase the crude remark from my poor coach's dry erase board, (although, now thinking about it, I'm sure my coach who also taught biology could have figured a way to work that into the curriculum). It was a moment. Seemingly insignificant, but over time, valuable because it was shared. Our lives are made up of many many instances like this -- something may have even happened to you today, that you'll push aside and over the years will become a gem.

But then there are also those moments that as they are happening, you feel as though time has stopped and taken a picture; you are frozen in the emotions, cemented in the weight of the frame as if somehow you are directing the camera but simultaneously playing a role. It was an honor to be at that door that night. We grouped, we gathered, and we rang...I was clutching the neck of a champagne bottle with my left hand and biting my lower lip with great anticipation, as if I were playing the lotto, ticket in hand, breathlessly waiting for balls to drop and for life to change. As the door opened and we saw her floored face the frozen frame shifted to a flip book that took me back to the moment they met: A fateful weekend in the mountains, flash forward to the day he asked her to just say yes.

And she did.

Melissa handled her waves of surprises (first wave being engaged and second having all her friends know about it and show up for a make-shift engagement party celebration) in true Melissa fashion, with grace, gratitude and the truest form of happiness known to mankind. The rest of the evening was spent hearing both sides of their story and toasting to the future Mr. and Mrs. The ring was glowing although it had strong competition with Melissa's smile. Her father excitedly filled up my wine glass multiple times and we had laughs and tears interrupted by bites of cookies and cakes.

I don't need time or distance from this memory to understand its significance because each time I think about it, I'm there, in the moment.

There may only be a few of those in our lives and how lucky am I that I was able to share in it?

How lucky are we for knowing these two who show us what it means to love?