(the first edition of "someday wedding" a lengthy endeavor)

Gently sleeping
slowly keeping
my heart for the morrow,
beg and borrow
this sweet of sorrow
meant for tomorrow...

Consent to dream with me and see that I would seem to fall under some special gaze. A vison from heaven, a view of what will be. So come with me, though I cannot garuntee exactly what we'll see, to one of my dreams which burst at the seams with a joy and expectation undefined by whether or not it's real.

I feel, as I am floating. The world spins about me, stomach lurching to a halt before the rest of me can stop. I can hear people whispering with excitement. All I can see is darkness. Some part of me that seems so far away knows that I am dreaming. I decide that the darkness I see comes from not opening my eyes.

Color.

I am surrounded by a calm, gentle forest. Chairs are set out in nice rows, an isle of sorts, the grass a bit trampled by the feet of my father, my mother, my brothers and my sister. They sit in the white wooden chairs, turning to look at me as I stand behind everyone. My father waits for me at the front, I can see tears fighting him to escape. I know he'll last a while longer, but not the entire way.

I walk, not with the expected lightness of step, but with legs seemingly made of the heaviest of stone, devoid of energy and strength. It takes all I have not to fall. My mother is smiling and hugging my sister. I look about and see the others who have come, but I do not remember their faces. I reach the end of the rows of chairs, or perhaps it was the beginning and I started from the end. Either way, when I get there I wrap my arms around my father and hug him, the crowd laughing a bit. He doesn't hug people. But he'll hug his son and it lights a righteous, joyful fire in my heart to know this. I turn and am glad my hand is still on my father's shoulder. If it were not I would have fallen then and there.

She walks to the back of the small gathering in the gentle summer woods, resting her arm on her father's arm. When her eyes meet mine everyone else disappears. Her arm now rests on nothing and I can only barely hear the whispers from people once there

now gone.

She is beautiful and my heart claws and scraps away at my insides, gasping, drowing in realized hope. With each step she takes down that isle my heart grows weaker, threatening to fall down into my shoes as I forget to take a breath. She...the very essence of her, her eyes, her hair, the shape of her figure, the look that she has for no one but me. And the fire burning deep inside that I know is a passionate love for God that dwarfs her love for me. My eyes begin to ache as I have not blinked once since I turned and saw her. My lungs burn as I have not drawn breath since the last time I blinked. She steps forward, letting go fo the arm of a man I can no longer see. My father clears his throat from somewhere in front of me, snapping me back to everyone waiting patiently for me to stop staring.

I blink. I breathe.

They'll just have to live with it. My father speaks the words he has spoken so many times before, his voic not broken with the vocal traces of the tears now walking slowly down his cheecks. His voice is full of pride and joy, for me and my wife. I look to her as the vows are spoken. She has said hers but I cannot say mine. I try...but my legs of the heaviest stone can hold me no longer. I fall to my knees and weep. She kneels beside me and cries as well. A little bit of laughter mixed in as well. The crowd of our family and friends laugh, the softies covertly crying with us. She takes my face in her hands...threatens me with a sound thrashing if I do not say it and then kisses me before my father can give us permission.

I stand.
I say it.

"I do."

My father gives us permission.

I was told that my brothers had to drag us apart. My mother was laughing, my father was wiping tears from his eyes. I was also told that my wife hit one of my brothers, knocking him back long enough to get back to me for a few more seconds before Tate simply pushed us apart and demanded that we get over to the cake. Knowing how Tate loves his cake I went and we cut the cake, something my mother made with her mother. Liable to thrill our tastebuds and help us all gain an extra five pounds. My brother Zach is trying to find out if there are A ) any good candidates for a wife at the wedding and B ) searching for the Mello Yellow. Kaleb is with Bryce, they started the cake a little earlier, but you can still figure out that it said something along the lines of our names and congratulations. Emi is hanging out with her friends, pointedly ignoring the boys who seem to be embarrasing her. Well, God blessing everyone with some kind of gift and her brothers have got their own gifts.

While no one, well, okay, while everyone was looking I kissed the bride again. but hey, the words aren't "you may kiss the bride once." They are, "you may kiss the bride." I did. Tate gave me a dirty look. So I shrugged and handed him a piece of cake and kissed my wife again. I decided it was fun so I did it again (the kissing, not the cake...if mister I can bench 400+ pounds wants another slice he can get his own). Sensing the suggestion about to come out after we'd finshed making use of my cake distraction, I asked her to dance with me. Everyone else disappeared again as we whirled around the forest clearing dancing to music only we could hear...

To my wife who I have yet to meet. I love you.

May such dreams be such as so, that one day I will dream through open eyes and watch as true dream show...that it is she my wife, this girl that I know.