"Joseph"
This past weekend I was at a very nice church off Shelbyville Rd. here in Louisville, seeing my friends John and Julie get married off. As I write this, they're probably happily enjoying roaming Disneyworld in between newfound wedded bliss.
I spent most of last Friday helping the soon-to-be-happy-couple arranging tables, setting up decorations, and making mad dashes to various stores for small items that had been forgotten in the chaos. I got home much later that day and made a mad scramble to find my one suit and attempt to fit it around my waistline, which has expanded a bit in the three years since I'd worn it last. We ended the day with a meal paid by for the parents at Claudia Sanders, where you can taste the Colonels 11 herbs and spices unmodified by corporate meddling. It was delicious. I could barely sleep through the acid reflux afterwards.
On Saturday the festivities began. I greeted a few members of Julies family, and was eventually approached by an elderly lady in a wheelchair driven her son. This turned out to be Julies grandmother, and it turned out we had a lot in common.
I was to go up on stage at the wedding and read a bible verse in the middle of the ceremony, because I played a role in getting John and Julie together in the firs place. My odd quirk of being the only person who knew both participants of the wedding before they or their families did meant I could pretty much sit wherever I wanted, but to be close to the podium, I went to sit near the far end of Julies side. Her grandmother was also being wheeled over that way, and I helped her son get her out of her wheelchair and onto the pew.
We made some small talk, and it was nice to chat with someone else who had hearing problems besides myself for a changeus deaf folks tend to look directly at the speaker and string out words out, trying to emphasize the whole sentence instead of starting out strong and slowing to a whisper at the endjust little things that made conversing either. Joking about our hearing led to a general discussion of medical problems, and I mentioned the word creatinine (its a kidney function thingy), she mentioned that she too, had been on dialysis. We exchanged some similar stories, and I began getting a little overcome with emotion, meeting a kindred disabled soul and seeing tow of my best friends tying the knot on stage in front of me.
Oh yeah, Id better collect myself, Im supposed to read a bible verse.
Then her grandmother pulls out an even greater story, starting off with the words, I know this may sound creepy, but I married my husband when Id barely met him. We wrote letters to each other for a year before he came to see me. He was a soldier. Id seen him in person 14 days before our wedding. I tell her thats not creepy at all, and in fact reminds me a lot of internet relationships of today, between people who live far away from one another. She went on to tell me what a great man her husband was, and a great father. I could tell she missed him very much.
I asked her what his name was? Joseph*, came the reply.
*- for the few that dont know, Joseph is my birth name. I just play Yevla on the internet.
At this point I am BAWLING my eyes out, rubbing both of them with my fingers because the minister is about to turn the 140 person audience over to me. I just lost it. I dry my eyes my seconds to spare and whisper to her, Thats a fine name. heh. I walked up to the podium and read a verse from Corithians;
1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version)
1 Corinthians 13
Love
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Afterwards, I walked back down to my seat, hoping I didnt screw up the reading too bad (although I was told later I did I really good jobI suppose those two years of doing improve on stag probbly helped). I leaned over to Julies grandmother and whispered, That was nerve-wracking.
She laughed.
This past weekend I was at a very nice church off Shelbyville Rd. here in Louisville, seeing my friends John and Julie get married off. As I write this, they're probably happily enjoying roaming Disneyworld in between newfound wedded bliss.
I spent most of last Friday helping the soon-to-be-happy-couple arranging tables, setting up decorations, and making mad dashes to various stores for small items that had been forgotten in the chaos. I got home much later that day and made a mad scramble to find my one suit and attempt to fit it around my waistline, which has expanded a bit in the three years since I'd worn it last. We ended the day with a meal paid by for the parents at Claudia Sanders, where you can taste the Colonels 11 herbs and spices unmodified by corporate meddling. It was delicious. I could barely sleep through the acid reflux afterwards.
On Saturday the festivities began. I greeted a few members of Julies family, and was eventually approached by an elderly lady in a wheelchair driven her son. This turned out to be Julies grandmother, and it turned out we had a lot in common.
I was to go up on stage at the wedding and read a bible verse in the middle of the ceremony, because I played a role in getting John and Julie together in the firs place. My odd quirk of being the only person who knew both participants of the wedding before they or their families did meant I could pretty much sit wherever I wanted, but to be close to the podium, I went to sit near the far end of Julies side. Her grandmother was also being wheeled over that way, and I helped her son get her out of her wheelchair and onto the pew.
We made some small talk, and it was nice to chat with someone else who had hearing problems besides myself for a changeus deaf folks tend to look directly at the speaker and string out words out, trying to emphasize the whole sentence instead of starting out strong and slowing to a whisper at the endjust little things that made conversing either. Joking about our hearing led to a general discussion of medical problems, and I mentioned the word creatinine (its a kidney function thingy), she mentioned that she too, had been on dialysis. We exchanged some similar stories, and I began getting a little overcome with emotion, meeting a kindred disabled soul and seeing tow of my best friends tying the knot on stage in front of me.
Oh yeah, Id better collect myself, Im supposed to read a bible verse.
Then her grandmother pulls out an even greater story, starting off with the words, I know this may sound creepy, but I married my husband when Id barely met him. We wrote letters to each other for a year before he came to see me. He was a soldier. Id seen him in person 14 days before our wedding. I tell her thats not creepy at all, and in fact reminds me a lot of internet relationships of today, between people who live far away from one another. She went on to tell me what a great man her husband was, and a great father. I could tell she missed him very much.
I asked her what his name was? Joseph*, came the reply.
*- for the few that dont know, Joseph is my birth name. I just play Yevla on the internet.
At this point I am BAWLING my eyes out, rubbing both of them with my fingers because the minister is about to turn the 140 person audience over to me. I just lost it. I dry my eyes my seconds to spare and whisper to her, Thats a fine name. heh. I walked up to the podium and read a verse from Corithians;
1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version)
1 Corinthians 13
Love
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Afterwards, I walked back down to my seat, hoping I didnt screw up the reading too bad (although I was told later I did I really good jobI suppose those two years of doing improve on stag probbly helped). I leaned over to Julies grandmother and whispered, That was nerve-wracking.
She laughed.
dryad:
I agree 100%.