I married the most remarkable woman seven Sundays ago. Rachel is kind, considerate, brilliant, beautiful, and as abundantly full of love as any person I have ever met. She is my best friend and my teacher.
The day was captured with vibrant care by the imitable Haley and Migui Gallinadelapeña of Good Moon Collective1. Haley and Migui had Rach and I over for dinner last week, and the conversation we shared was sacred and special. With precision, they recalled moments from our wedding that had escaped even my mind: the dance moves my niece busted out, the characteristic laugh of a dear friend, their favorite tune spun by DJ Zach2.
It was clear from the get-go that we were in caring hands when we found Haley and Migui, and that night concretized what we already knew. They ended the evening by surprising us with a world premiere of Randy and Rachel’s wedding video (audience of four!) and a small printed album of some of their favorite photos from the day. Laughter and tears emulsified into awe as memories came rushing back.
And watching that video, I felt something snap into place that had been missing.
Truth be told, the seven weeks following that most-wonderful-day have been a strange adjustment. We were relieved to have wedding planning behind us and be able to reclaim some time in each week. And sure enough, the added flexibility in our schedules has been a gift. But I have felt a certain dis-ease bordering on malaise that has been difficult to pinpoint. Really, it took a conversation with my therapist the night after our meal with Haley and Migui to piece together this feeling. He pointed out to me the possibility that maybe I hadn’t grieved what had passed. At first, this struck me as strange and counterintuitive, for what is there to grieve in the wake of our wedding? But I quickly came to accept that he may be right. Never before that day had I felt such an intense flood of connection and love. Rachel had pointed out early in our engagement that the very collection of people who would sit in the pews to witness our vows would likely never convene in the same room again: an entirely unique congregation, both the representation and realization of all the love that had carried us to this point in our stories.
In the smoke trails of that bonfire, I needed to grieve: not because I had to approach some sort of pain, but to approach the blazing beauty of a moment that existed in time and could never be replicated.
Watching our wedding video in Haley and Migui’s dining room opened me up to that grief and gratitude. And it placed into proper context how I want to live in the aftermath of that singular celebration.
I got a letter from my dear friend Jack about forty-eight after the wedding. In it, he provided me with what I am confident will be the lasting image that will anchor my memory of the day. Jack wrote:
On Sunday, I felt a deep sense of meaning shared between you and Rachel in the life you were choosing to have together. It was like a heft stone lobbed into the center of a lake whose ripples wouldn’t stop flowing until we felt them as tidal waves.3
Visuals have always been helpful for me in the process of figuring what happened, and that was certainly the case as I read Jack’s letter. The whole wedding day was frankly such a blur that it took my body and mind days to metabolize everything we experienced. But this image of a stone tossed into a lake proved to be the perfect frame.
The rippling effect after the impact is so well-known as to be almost unremarkable (I can hear my high school physics teacher chiding me). I had never stopped to consider why this happens, what physical law dictates that a lake’s surface undulates concentrically from the point of impact. It turns out these ripples are called “capillary waves” because the surface tension of the water carries the kinetic energy of the splash outward.4
Back to the metaphor: “it was like a heft stone lobbed into the center of a lake whose ripples wouldn’t stop flowing until we felt them as tidal waves.” If you’ve been lucky enough to witness this phenomenon in a large body of water on a day where the surface is particularly still, you may have noticed that the ripples can extend out extraordinarily far. The spaces between waves grow larger as they travel further from the center point, but the energy carries on all the way until it’s halted by the shore or the waves collide with another body.
We danced along the surface that night, waist-deep in the water, all gathered around the spray of that heft stone. We couldn’t help but make a splash, each of us in that room breaking the surface tension over and over, our bodies possessed by a collective capillary joy. More than one friend informed me during the cocktail hour that I was literally jumping and shaking my hands as I waited for my father-in-law to walk my bride down the aisle. To describe the energy of that evening as contagious would be a gross understatement.
I think the grief comes in the recognition that the splash has subsided: we have lobbed the boulder into the lake’s center with finality. That explosive night now exists in our shared memories, in the stories we tell and won’t stop telling.
But there’s a strength and acceptance that comes in recognizing what has passed. The party is over, but I’d like to believe none of us have stepped out of the water. I wrote back to Jack to thank him for giving me this image:
That night had all the bombastic energy of the splash that erupts as the rock breaks the water’s surface tension. I felt an electrifying love that was more powerful and mysterious than any I had ever felt before. I felt fully alive and fully united in love with the friends who surrounded me. It was brilliance.
Maybe this is where the physical fidelity of our metaphor falls apart, but I don’t believe the waves have stopped crawling across the lake, and I don’t believe they ever have to. I confided in Jack that “the deepest wish I could have for my life and my marriage would be that the explosion of that night would ripple infinitely outward, welcoming more and more into the fold of the love I felt.”
There is no Law of Conservation of Love.
Of all the moments Haley and Migui captured with their lenses, this one is my favorite. I can’t speak for Rach, but that moment practically compelled the muscles around my mouth into a smile. I have never felt such concentrated joy as I did during our last dance.
Friends crowded onto the floor and held each other in their arms. Some had known each other for decades and some met that night; it simply didn’t matter. Tears have accompanied each instance I’ve looked at this picture. New details reveal themselves and charm me with every glance.
What I love about this moment is that Rachel and I are not looking into each others’ eyes (though we certainly did plenty of that throughout the night); no, we’re looking out. It’s visual proof that our partnership does not and cannot exist without the community in which it was forged. And my prayer is that our love might be hospitable and only cause the circle to grow.
This is it. This moment right here—held in each other’s arms, surrounded by our people—is the ripple’s genesis. Come to the floor and let the tidal waves crash over you. There is space for you here, even if you feel weak or weary. May nobody deny you your part in this dance.
I married the most remarkable woman seven Sundays ago. She is kind, considerate, brilliant, and beautiful. She loves freely, and it’s unlike anything I have ever seen. Her love is radiant and welcoming. It beckons me to gaze out and around.
We all live on the water’s surface and that’s not always easy. But life is capillary: the surface tension carries the energy of each splash. Some days, our job is to invite our neighbor to step into the water. Some days, we’re simply called to receive the ripples as they come to us.
There may be moments where they seem weaker, the intervals between each wave longer. There too will be moments which toss another stone into the lake, which energize us to love afresh. When the water’s surface is exceptionally still and we lose our orientation, love may come in the form of the faintest wave churned up by a long-gone splash.
May we each surround ourselves with those who will help us to look up and welcome the waves.
Blessings,
Randy Westergaard
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
-Teilhard de Chardin
If you liked what you read here, give my previous essay a read (yes, it’s two years old, and I’m awful grateful to be writing in this space again). And if you’re up to read more of my words, go ahead and follow me on Twitter, Threads Instagram @lladnar42 and sign up for my email list by clicking the “Subscribe now” button below.
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Chicago friends, please hire and host Haley and Migui; they are incredible people and supremely talented. You simply won’t regret it. https://www.goodmooncollective.com/
Hire him too! The night would not have been what it was without Zach’s tunes.
Yes, Jack is an extremely talented and articulate writer.
I’ll probably stick with ‘ripples’, but this is a good tidbit to pocket should I ever make it onto Jeopardy.
Randall- You’re so right about the milestone that divides the mighty past and the sweetness of what’s ahead. What I love is the way you curate this thinking in this piece with the chronicling of your black and white photographs. Beautifully done.