Sometimes I remember…

…standing with my Daddy and feeling awkward, like I wanted to be shy and avoid meeting his eyes with mine.  He asked me how I felt as we stood in the foyer, a plush fringed rug beneath our feet.  I guess I said “all right” and asked the same of him. 

I can still see his pretty, wide smile and the lines in his olive skin spreading away from his happy blue eyes.  He felt great, he reported, eyes looking ahead, genuinely excited.  Then he confessed his spirits had been eased a bit with an early taste of brew.  We laughed and I felt his presence begin to ease my own spirits. 

Everyone looked so pretty and distant through the window of the door that separated us from them.  The sheer white curtain added a softness to our view that matched the haze in my mind.  I stood there with Daddy, forcing a few deep breaths through my lungs, willing the oxygen to help me center myself.  Find the strength to hold myself together.

I heard Pachelbel Canon in D playing and I smiled.  I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined flying over golden Canadian fields. I watched the beautiful scenes from the movie that first made me love those tender, sweet notes.  

Daddy opened the door.  We stepped out onto the wood floor of the long, covered porch.  Then, beneath ancient oak trees standing grandly in the St. Augustine grass - vivid, green and lush from a week of persistent rain - My Daddy walked me towards the river and down the aisle.