Life's Bittersweet Transitions, In Black and White

Everybody is happy that Cousin James married Karen, but the boys are very unhappy about his subsequent move, with his new bride, to Texas - a state so far away, and so big, that in normal continents, it would be a separate country, as it once was following its initial independence from Mexico.  After the wedding, on Sunday night, I asked Daniel if he enjoyed the wedding, and of course, the review was mixed:  Yes, but he's not happy that James is moving to Texas.

The boys are so attached to James, that Daniel wanted in the worst way, on Sunday afternoon, after Liturgy but before the wedding, to go over to the house and play with him - at exactly the time that James and his groomsmen were off getting settled into their Tuxedos.

Meanwhile, Madeleine, who seemed to figure more prominently in the wedding ceremony than anyone except perhaps Karen, made a point of bringing in the car with her, on her way to preschool on our first morning back from the wedding, the white basket - with a black handle - in which she bore the flower petals from her brief but crucial ministry as Flower Girl.  Instead of white flower petals, the basket now contained her little pink, stuffed mouse lemming from the Bronx Zoo.  Lo these two days later, the basket and its mouse lemming still "live" in my car, between Madeleine's car-seat and her larger basket filled with stuffed bunnies.

I was driving Ian home from Russian Math the other night, and, seeing Madeleine's flower basket, with its black handle, he asked me - quite earnestly, I think:

"Dad, do you think the reason the handle's black is to mourn the fact that James and Karen are moving to Texas?"

(May 21, 2013)