The Midget got married so she and the Blacksmith may now collectively be known as the Siblings.
And these dear siblings of mine are all adorably in love and what with the house smelling of roses and raspberry and white-chocolate cheesecake, they had a most perfect little wedding. The Siblings have a grin that could swallow the world. The clouds and the rain couldn’t compete. The sun tried its best to, and so summer finally turned up, but nothing could beat the Sibling’s smile.
Understandably I’ve been busy doing hair (the smaller sibling’s) and sewing because the Father wanted a tie to match his new waistcoat and so presented me with the material and made his request and smiled and being a dutiful daughter what could I do but clamber back into the loft, find the machine and learn how to make one. Back into the loft I say because I’d only just put the beast away – so much bunting.
The midget-sized sibling wanted me to plait her hair and so I did in a thousand plaits with handmade paper roses, long blue ribbons and my mother’s headdress. The one worn many years ago, before I was born, when she and the Father said their vows to each other.
And the Midget was beautiful and ever so elegant and managed to be entirely herself even though I played with her like a doll and she even let me put mascara near her bright blue eyes. She was pandering to me, but it’s not often that I get to play such games. I painted her toenails and promptly stood on her feet. We never mastered this hair and make-up thing like other girls do. I remember watching another bridal prep – one where I took the photos – and there were makeup artists and false lashes and trays of paints and an expertise I couldn’t understand. I did the Midget’s make-up the same as I do my own, and I did my own in the same as I do any other day and she looked like the Midget and I looked like me.
The Little Mermaid said she’d prefer to have lots of beautiful clothes rather than lots of beautiful make-up. I told her I’d rather a plane ticket and good food with friends. A dear friend of the Siblings and I fell into a conversation about ceviche and I told her I’d take her out for dinner the other side of the world and buy her a pisco sour. It’s a good plan.
But even before the bubbles and chinking glasses, the wedding was most definitely an adventure. Planned and re-planned, with risk assessments and hand sanitiser and masks and the Tall Aunty alert system – the fastest pandemic news source on the planet. And yet despite the world being in chaos around them, never knowing what would be in the next call from the registry office, the Siblings seemed to keep it in perspective and whilst the Mother negotiated and renegotiated with the catering, the Midget thought and talked about the adventure that would follow – being married.
So in my mind, the Siblings deserve every milli-second of their joy because they’ve worked out that if you want a relationship to work, you work at it. That love isn’t simply a game of infatuation but an act of warrior like bravery. That it’s an act from the heart of pure and unfaltering courage. That, as a wise man once said to me, the wedding is nice, but it’s the marriage that counts.