2005-10-16 - 2:15 p.m.
Two of my friends married each other. This is convenient, as now I don�t have to remember a new name. But it�s also unexpected, as Kevin and Erin never went out when we were back in college. I never even thought Kevin would get married at all. He was always kind of an independent ladies� man and I didn�t figure him to be the type to settle down.
He was a fellow outer-city kid made good. He grew up in West Roxbury, Boston. This is the neighborhood where Irish immigrants (like Kevin�s parents) go who have somewhat more class than to settle in townie South Boston. He went to the entrance-exam magnet public high school and on to Harvard. We used to bond over having successfully shed our deep-city accents.
Kevin was supposed to be one of my roommates in 1995-96. I managed to get myself expelled for that year, scotching such plans. (My place was taken by a rather insufferable twit. Sorry about that.) Last winter, Kevin and company came to visit me in Providence for a reunion of our theoretical rooming group. I was still having a hard time adjusting to being a crip and it meant the world to me that friends would take the time to visit.
Kevin went on to work for the Federal Reserve Bank and then founded his own company, wholesale marketing other companies� furniture online. Now this was the late-90s, the height of the dot.com boom. But Kevin�s company�s mission was a lot more grounded than most of the nebulous plans of other Internet abstractions. While I�m not sure they turned a profit, they had actual revenues, which is a lot more than you can say for most dot.coms at the time.
Kevin was smart and sold out to his backers before the bubble burst. I have no idea how much he made, but I suspect he can spot me a drink or two. With business acumen like that, I had to ask him to be on my board of directors. Hometown pride plus, you know. The luck of the Irish.
Erin was my �sister� at school. Maybe she still is. She was incredibly sweet to me and took care of me when I was young and a mess and least deserved it. She had grown up in farthest Long Island, not near my Brooklyn home at all. Still, I decided she was my homegirl because I could relate to her scrappier upbringing a lot better than I could to many of my classmates from ritzy, polo-and-champagne backgrounds.
Erin took me to the freshman formal dance. I can�t remember if I did anything stupid to embarrass her (I probably did and she was too nice to call me on it). But I was so proud to have someone so warm and shining and beautiful as my date. As we got older, I think I might have avoided her too much because I was afraid of scaring her with what an increasing wreck I was getting to be.
That warmth and caring has only grown with time. Today Erin�s a psychologist for the VA and sees former servicepeople from Vietnam to Iraq who are having trouble with what they�ve seen. I�m afraid I certainly know what it is to unload your troubles to her. I don�t think there�s anyone I�d rather talk with to help me resolve my issues. She helped me then and she helps others ten times as much now.
Okay. So Kevin and Erin�s wedding ceremony was at 4PM on Saturday at a church with the oh-so-precious address of 0 Garden Street in Harvard Square. I came to the church early to head off any complications that came up. No one could find the rector with the key to the elevator, so I hobbled up the stairs to the sanctuary and had my wheelchair dragged up after me.
Another guest was also there early and was very nice about pushing my chair around. Was I friends with the bride or the groom? I said I�d known them both for a long time. Which side of the church would I rather sit on? I picked the groom�s side. He took me to sit in a pew and folded my chair up in the back.
My first suspicion that something might be amiss was when I noticed this was a Unitarian church. Well, I rationalized, Kevin�s Catholic and Erin is Protestant. Perhaps they decided on a Unitarian ceremony as a Green/Orange compromise. Wouldn�t be unreasonable.
I didn�t recognize any of the other guests, but it was still early. As time went on and I still didn�t recognize the people coming in, I figured it was simply that I didn�t know all of their friends. And some of the women entering were kind of cute. I mean, I�m spoken for but I can still look, right? Too bad they weren�t sitting down next to me�
Then the music started playing. The wedding participants marched in. One Robin and Brian were embarking on a wonderful life together. I had no idea who they were. I was in the wrong place. Normally at such moments you would discretely slip out the back. But, being a gimp, I can�t exactly discretely do anything. I sat through the ceremony politely and clapped where appropriate. I�m sure they�ll make a wonderful couple.
I was apparently at 0 Church Street, around the corner from the correct ceremony. Ah well. The pastor said that people showed up at the wrong service all the time. Robin and Brian seemed to have a bus going to their reception far off. But I figured I should correct my course and go to the right reception at the Harvard Faculty Club a few blocks away.
There was much drinking and dancing involved. Well, I don�t really dance much these days. But I did manage to hold onto the shoulders of a friend and do the junior high school slow shuffle. None of us are getting any younger. After tearing up the floor for a few songs, my friend Zack came away really winded, noting that throwing down like that would have been nothing when we were 20.
I�m very happy that Kevin and Erin found each other as partners as we�ve matured. I don�t think they would have been a good match at 18. Hell, who could have possibly wanted to share their life with any of us at that age? We were all pretty unsuitably crazy. (Okay fine, maybe I was a little less suitable than most myself.)
And might I add that I�m glad they stayed their wedding night at the Harvard Faculty Club. The place could benefit from a little sex in it... Best wishes to Robin and Brian too. They were probably crazy at 18 as well, but I expect they�ll have a beautiful life together now.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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