THE TREE OF LIFE

Instead of a guest book the bride and groom had requested us to sign our names on a large poster board with the image of a large rambling tree on it.  Here and there, scattered across the paper, were leaves of varying sizes to choose from; I picked a pen and a leaf and added our names, and thought how this fit into what I had been thinking earlier while we waited for the ceremony to begin.

It was an outdoor wedding in the happy couple’s backyard.  Rows of white chairs, a garden gazebo decorated in white fabric and green vines, white petals tossed along the path the wedding party would use, and as a backdrop to the scene tall and mighty trees.  The skies were threatening to let loose on us and I felt protected with them there. 

Or maybe it was a sense of being ‘at ease’.  Or, a little bit blessed?  Perhaps ‘at one with the Universe’?

Wedding crowds are a gathering of many people – some that you’ve known all your life, and some you’ve never laid eyes on until you arrive for the ceremony.  Seated all around us were the aunts and the uncles and the cousins of the bride and groom, and with the groom’s side of the family that’s a lot of people.  That’s the side I hailed from, and it was good to see so many of their familiar faces.

But thinking of how good it was to see them inevitably brought my thoughts to those who were not there.  The groom’s mother, his uncle, a cousin, an aunt, all of his grandparents – if this was the tree of life it had certainly been through a few storms, there were branches missing.

My daughter and her two little boys sat beside me; her father’s branch had been ripped off when she was younger than they are now.  Time has passed, the tree stands strong and vital, but there is still a scar where the damage was done.

My sister, the groom’s aunt – the empty spot on the trunk where her branch was is a much newer vacancy.  It still feels odd to be with all of these people and not to have her there too.

The mother of the groom – such a lovely lady – gone too, but the crowd is dotted with her sisters and nieces.  I hear her laugh, her voice.  Without a doubt she is the most missed person of all on this day.

And yet ... I had this feeling of being surrounded, of being in a bubble of contentment and peace.  Was it my thoughts of those who were missing that stirred these feelings up?  And if so, did the feeling come from me?  Or them? 

For a moment or two their absence felt more like a presence.

There’s this children’s animated movie that came out a few years ago – Coco.  You should see it. 

When it first came out there was some controversy about whether it was appropriate for little kids; it’s about death.  But it’s not about how our North American society sees death, it’s about how the people of Mexico and other Latin American countries see it.  They keep the memories of their ancestors alive and believe that they are always close by.  In our sophisticated, North American, common sense approach, we believe that if we can no longer see our loved ones, or interact with them, then that must mean they are completely gone.  Sometimes being practical isn’t the smartest thing to be.

Of course the story line of the movie is much more involved and entertaining, and the colors they used are amazing, but the part that stays with me is the final scene where the living are having a family celebration.  Everyone there is dressed in their finest clothes, there are tables of food, and happy music, and little children run about playing ... and right in the midst of all this (although unseen) are their family dead, their ancestors, as natural a part of the scene as anyone else.

I’d like to think that’s what was happening at the wedding dance.  There was food and music and small children dancing.   I wonder if there  were a few leaves on that family tree poster that remained unsigned - well, by any ink that we could see, anyway.