Science has shown the butterfly effect to engage
with the
first movement of any form of matter- including people.
~from Andy
Andrews book The Butterfly Effect
a gift for
the families who attended the wedding
A few years ago, a boy was too busy to make it out for a
blind date with a girl.
After talking to her long distance by chat, text, phone, he
decided he had to see her. Convincing
his parents who were on their way to the town where she lived to drop him off
at her house for the weekend, he arrived at her doorstep, a sleeping bag and
pillow in hand.
I don’t recall the exact way it was told at the Rehearsal
Dinner but I think it went down like this.
As he stood there, a surprise to this girl and her college room mates,
he waved to his parents over his shoulder with a huge grin, “This is Lauren. I
am going to meet her parents this weekend, then another weekend you are going
to get to know her and some day we are going to be married!”
They dated a couple of years and the celebration of their
lives together was this weekend in Rosemary Beach, Florida.
My husband and two daughters (7 and 17) followed the flutter
of love set forth in their college days and headed to Rosemary beach for their
wedding. Getting to know his family, in
the brief moments we had around them, was something magical. To meet Will you
can only grin from ear to ear. I don’t recall seeing him not smiling, and
hugging people, and sticking his arm out to say “I’m Will!” to anyone and
everyone he saw.
Toasts from their friends were all upbeat, magical, kind,
genuinely all about the magic of their love.
The preacher who married them had been waiting for this day since he was
a child. His humor and pure joy for the occasion sent waves of chuckles
throughout the weekend.
A toast was made by an elderly couple, briefly strangers,
who met Will on an airplane on his way back from Argentina where he works as a
hunting guide.
“I’m getting married,” he told them.
The gentleman whom I would guess is in his seventies gleamed
as he and his wife stood to toast Will.
“This boy whom I met for only hours but felt like I knew him my whole
life told me about Lauren on the ride home. It sounded like such a magical
union. “
Will’s answer was, “You should come. I’ll send you a ticket!”
And that is how the little northern couple too were sucked
up into the love current started back in college by a boy with a big heart and
a girl who won it with her brains, beauty and love of hunting.
And everywhere we were, stories of Will and Lauren drifted
across the wind. Her college friends from Rhodes, her roommates from Auburn,
and some from Graduate School at Vanderbilt all meshed together in a tail wind
of excitement spurred by the birth of a little girl whose daddy taught her how
to hunt and fish and her mama who loved to shop with her and ski and do all the
things boys like for girls to do with them while looking “fabulous”.
While her parents are no longer married, the love in her
heart and the love they have for her brought them to a moment where they could
stand together, for her, with her. The
toast Carson made was not about him…but how “your mother and I feel about the
blessing that you are”.
Love is the ultimate goal in life. It is the most important
of all of the messages that God left for us here on earth.
The couple didn’t say “we are in love”.
They ARE love. Their eyes showed it, their hugs showed it. There was no need for words.
In a time when the world seems tiny and meaningless for so
many as it crumbles around us and hate rises up, we are reminded on a beach in
a small town of Rosemary that there are great new beginnings being formed.
There are messages floating along the sands and waves shouting out to perhaps a
couple who was there who re-kindled a stale relationship, or a stranger who
watched from beyond the dunes who dreamed of one day having such a blessed marriage.
Yes, there were butterfly effects going on all around us in
Rosemary.
My seven year old watched it all. Perhaps the effect she sees will be with her
forever as she aspires for true love.
She was so excited to help hand out the rosemary that would shower the
bride and groom as they rolled off in
their antique thunderbird convertible. Rosemary symbolizes love, remembrance,
friendship and truth ~ something they will take into a new life, a new world, where
laced into an even more powerful strand, I have no doubt that they will send
tornadoes of hope across the world.
Cheers and congratulations to you for touching my life and
reminding me how precious my sweet husband is and how blessed I am with my children.
The greatest of these….is love. Thanks for sharing yours!
Allison Adams
