Little girls grow up, marry and change their names.
It was one of those Beverly Hills weddings. The groom sneaked in, unnoticed at the ultra conservative church of The Good Shepherd.
On the other hand, the bride emerged from a lily white stretch limousine. She hitched up her handwoven French lace wedding gown and treaded her way through a swarm of relatives and friends.
It was a beautiful day for a wedding — crisp cool under the bluest, most brilliant California sky.
Since the bride no longer had a father, the mother of the bride (who is presumed to be familiar with the frontiers and dimensions of love’s bliss and rapture; various levels of pain and heartbreaks; the true heights of joy and depths of sadness; and is acknowledged to be the repository of secret reserves of courage, patience, discipline and grit) now assumed the monumental duty of taking charge and giving the bride away.
She held the bride’s hand firmly and walked with her down the aisle. She had no way of knowing, once her daughter has entered this costly bondage, what she will shed off.
How much will be taken away? What values will the bride shed in her pursuit of happiness?
Marriage is an invisible bond of commitment, where acts (not words) really count.
When did she stop being a child? When did she begin to be a young woman?
The mother remembers her daughter’s arrival, after five long years of waiting.
Who could forget night vigils — deprived of sleep, waistline and fun? She was ceaselessly patted and burped and when she fell angelically asleep. Her helplessness was her only security and protection.
The mother would exact a whisper of that wordless vow, and promise: “I will love this baby as long as I live!”
On her fourteenth year, she had ideas that shocked you.
There were also screaming arguments because of unmotherly shrills: why she should keep her room clean, why she needs to study her Filipino or why she should not snap at the maids.
As our eyes locked in combat, I searched for the baby whom I panicked and wept for, countless dawns ago.
I couldn’t fathom what she was looking for in my face, but whatever it was, she found it there because she would burst into laughter.
That would vanish the anger between us, without resolving what we were fighting about.
She continued to leave a wide trail of disorder in the house — with math lessons unsolved, books strewn in the study, bathroom messed up and her younger sisters all weeping, as I became the true and real adversary with my rules and impositions — the merry widow secretly called Medusa.
I was not always right about her but I knew I was (almost) perfect about the things I wanted for her and my other three daughters.
I wanted them to imbibe all the virtues (whether still relevant or not) like honesty, compassion, respect for the law, and the constant knowledge that life is not one long joyride. But if you make the necessary adjustments, everything will fall into place.
A few years back, I watched her, already a grown-up and locked in combat with a particularly bloodthirsty beast, who is notorious for its unsportsman-like conduct.
Life around the house couldn’t be more stressful. If her father were still around, perhaps he could have dealt with the brooding, moody, volatile and exhausted person at our address.
“I’m okay Mother,” she would screech, turning fierce when I reminded her of time, meals, vitamins and sleep.
Honks of vehicles and applause greeted the newlyweds, as they emerged from the limousines’s bubble top and posed for the wedding pictures by the steps of the church.
And in the joyous reception at the Polo Lounge, one discovered (though a bit late) that even champagne named Dom Perignon and high heels do not get along.
