LESSONS LEARNED

“. . . people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

  



THE GREATEST OF THESE
Ellie Searl
Ed smiled and said, “Now is the time to declare with a kiss the wedding you have performed and we have witnessed.” Friends and family dabbed tears. The just-married couple embraced, kissed softly, and held onto each other, a little longer than usual, as though they couldn’t let go for fear it might all be a dream.


I took pictures of the crowd, and of the lanterns, and of the flowers, and of the tasseled wedding program resting on the seat of a white chair, and of the radiance streaming through the branches.


My husband Ed, a Unitarian Universalist minister, often asks me to go with him when he officiates at a wedding for people I don’t know. Ed gives me compelling reasons to attend, probably because he doesn’t like to go alone: the mother is a famous writer, the father is a New Delhi cartoonist, the bride is an Argentinean swimmer, the groom is a relative of Andrew Wyeth, the reception will be at the Newberry Library. “It will be great fun.” He says. “You’ll love it.”


So when Ed asked, “Want to go to a wedding in Dubuque? It’s in a park overlooking the Mississippi and the reception is at Eagle Ridge Resort. Should be pretty,”


I thought - Road trip. Wedding in Iowa. Reception in Galena. Great.
And when he told me who was getting married - Absolutely. This was an event I wanted to honor and celebrate, and it didn’t matter that they were perfect strangers. MORE . . .


UP DEEP CREEK
Carolyn B Healy



I stood on the bank and squinted at the two white-clad figures in the middle of Deep Creek’s swirling water. As a nine year-old city girl temporarily plunked down in the Smoky Mountains for a family visit, I was on high alert for things I couldn’t see back at home, and this was going to be a big one.


My cousin Annette, six years older, was on the list of my most admired people. She could cook and sew and win 4H prizes. She had the same name as my favorite Mouseketeer, and I harbored a secret hunch that she was really the famous Annette and the family was keeping it secret. Plus, she was a teenager with teenage friends, some of them boys.


Now she was standing in the middle of the creek in a pretty white dress with lace trim. I bet she made it, I thought in a spurt of pride. I knew from experience what she was up against out there. That water was cold as ice. I knew that because her mother Anna Lou would regularly pile the cousins into her Plymouth and barrel over mountain roads to take us to the swimming hole “up Deep Creek” and then back to her house for popsicles. MORE . . .