Advice from a small town girl

I love the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and watch it whenever I find it on the TV. As long as my husband is out of the house.

One wedding and one funeral were on my schedule this past weekend, and it got me thinking, about families, friends, life . . . you know, the whole ball of wax.

My youngest niece got married Friday.

It’s a good thing.

I think.

She’s only nineteen, which seems impossibly young to me.

She’s also, how do you say it nicely . . . pregnant.

I have been reluctant to put that out there in this column. I’m quite sure that many people would keep it to themselves, even though it’s pretty obvious to all but the most innocent or obtuse.Then, most of my readers have never met my niece, and as I tell my friends and family, it’s all grist for the mill.

I believe that we all tend to filter the behavior of others through our own experience, which is possibly not the smartest way to view things.

My family tends to marry late (in comparison to 19, anyway.) My mother was 28, my older sister 25 (I think), and I really took it to the extreme, not tying the knot until I was 48.

So, of course, that seems normal to me. Never mind that many other people I know married at 17, 18, 20 . . . . all impossibly young.

Our family also has quite a bit of experience with the other aspect of this most recent wedding.

My mother used to tell of an acquaintance of her parents who would repeatedly say, “Now, let’s see, Marilynn, your parents were married in June, weren’t they? And your birthday is in early February, isn’t that right? And you weighed how much? Oh, my.”

Then there’s the story of my maternal great-grandparents, who were strongly encouraged by great-grandmother’s family to immigrate to the United States from Norway after being “caught messing around in the bushes” as my mother put it.

And without being too blatant, let’s just say that my generation, my siblings and myself, all participated in the sexual revolution, to varying degrees and to varying results. The niece who married Friday is, in fact, the daughter of my unmarried younger sister.

It’s not the fact of the impending great-niece that bothers me. I know we will all love her to distraction.

It’s that I allowed my niece to be the receptacle of so many hopes and dreams. I wanted her to go to college. I wanted her to achieve all the things that elude so many of us.

And now her life, and my hopes, have been changed forever.

Saturday, I sang at a funeral, then helped in the church kitchen afterward. It was a well-attended service, with many family members and friends making the effort to be there. It was an obvious celebration of a life well-lived, with stories being shared and people enjoying each others’ company and reminiscences.

I guess the dreams I have for my niece should be that she has a life well-lived, and that many, many years from now, loved ones will celebrate having been blessed to know her.