This is all so surreal. The events leading up to this day have all felt a bit like that moment the night before Christmas. The one where you and your siblings all sleep in the same room and promise your parents you are all going to bed. Instead, you spend hours talking out the anticipation and expectation of what tomorrow holds.
Well, today is Christmas come early.
Recently, a friend of mine who owns a few restaurants in Manhattan was lamenting to me about a weekend family trip. All the children, his included, were found sitting together on a couch at 2:00PM in the middle of the afternoon. The weather was perfect outside, the intention should have been there, but all the children wanted to do was stay on the couch clutching their respective iPads and iPhones. My friend, Michael, tried to explain that the only boundary that awaited them outside on that gorgeous day was their own imagination. None of the children responded.
It was in his infuriating moment that I found the comfort of knowing implicitly this would never be an issue for Katie or Nate. Imagination has, and will continue to be, the crux of their love.
What happened to imagination? Encyclopedia is simply a word we ask our children to spell to prove they actually existed at one point. No one publishes them anymore.
What happened to imagination? Meeting that stranger across the bar and introducing yourself is now a lost art. No one would dream of putting themselves out there to a total stranger. Now, we excuse ourself to the rest room to find out how many mutual friends you have on Facebook, and then figure out how to contrive conversation based on what we already know of that person.
What is imagination?
Imagination is this yard. The one my sister named Playland, our own version of Finding Neverland. This very space raised half of the people here today. Lost Boys and Girls reading the writing on the wall, which was always written in chalk on the board my mother bought us and kept in the garage. The theme, the costumes, the cast were all ever changing, but the imagination behind all of it still lives in the hearts of the two people for whom we are all gathered here today.
I imagine a life for Katie and Nate. A life where a cardboard box isn't a confine, but rather a vehicle to the next adventure. A life where a wheelchair symbolizes handicap to most, and to them, it is the best mode of transportation to get you and your friends around the West End of Oneonta. Said wheelchair also inspired some pretty exceptional outfits, choice accents, and, without a doubt, stories that continue to be told around a campfire, at the bar, or in my own living room.
Katie and Nate's life makes us all imagine what it's like to be the product of self-fulfilling prophecy. In a world where most anticipate failure, they come from families that thrive on the subversion of true love. Both sets of parents, Mary and Neal and Eileen and Rob, have set the bar of love so high the rest of us would have stopped before we even tried to jump. The bond between Nate and Katie with their siblings is steadfast and built on an inherent understanding and mutual respect. When obstacles make themselves evident, they are not evaded but rather invited. Through Katie and Nate's combined imagination, they find solutions that confound the generally accepted policies of love in the modern era.
Why imagine, when you can live the love you've always hoped for yourself?
That's what Katie and Nate are doing today. This is a marriage not simply of two hearts, but rather of two imaginations that refuse to compromise. Katie successfully passed the Tucker test, and now, she and Nate are being tested by Miss Molly: their new family. They have integrated their beliefs to create a communal understanding of what it is to laugh and love and never apologize for being happier than most.
May that happiness and beautiful imagination guide them, and the lives they touch, to the best refrigerator box/spaceship ride ever! May their aspirations never be so far out of reach that a few hours in the wood shop or some quality time with a glue gun keep them from creating everything they dream of. May they always remember the true power of imagination comes from the marriage of heart and mind, a marriage that, in this case, will last a lifetime.
August 2, 2014
