It was the best celebration. Guests from a few continents came to celebrate the marriage of an American — who is half-Persian and raised all over the world — and an Ecuadorian. They met in South Africa.
I did not know either of them before coming, which is the crazy part. I came to Ecuador because an Ecuadorian friend with whom I was working in Israel was coming home for vacation. He started a foundation with some friends in his hometown of Loja before leaving the country, and maybe I could come and volunteer. Tickets were cheap, the cost of life even cheaper, and so I came. But before heading to the little Southern city nestled in the Andes, we spent a week in the capital.
I arrived in the middle of the night and almost puked. Altitude sickness was looming. It thankfully never came, but it did enforce a slower pace of life — no running or hoping or skipping or jumping until my body adapted. Which is a great excuse to sit around and eat all the fruits and corn and potato and meat that hospitable friends could offer. Basically, eating in Ecuador is very cheap, and often restaurants feel more like you just popped by someone´s kitchen for a plate of whatever their mother was making that day. Oh, what great mothers Ecuador has.
But on to the beautiful insanity that ensued. I had no idea who the bride was or who her mother was. In the morning, I discovered that her mother was none other than Dorthy Marcic, who wrote a book on management and dedicated it to the memory of my father. He had encouraged her from the beginning, and, more importantly, encouraged others to support her. Which they did. And with the help of others, a single mother of three published a successful book. These are the best stories to hear about someone at the end of their life. The things that actually did matter, whether or not they knew how much.
When the other guests arrived, we realized that the bride and her college friends who flew in from the far regions of Boston, San Francisco and Brooklyn, had done the same study abroad program that I had. Our program was small, we studied in three different continents for a semester — and some a year — and few others could relate to the experience of sharing a bed or the floor of a hut in an Indian village with seven or eight or twelve of their classmates.
There we were, two tight degrees of separation and a wedding at hand with perhaps the most chill bride in the world.
The program was made the night before. On April 11th, prayers and words to the wise from the parents of the newly weds. The bride´s stepfather noted that every time he did not get his way in his decade-plus of marriage to her mother, he learned more and grew more than he thought possible. It was a toast to both the straight and crooked paths and all the mistakes which we are bound to make.
The bride´s sisters came with songs they themselves performed and photos and videos of friends from around the world who could not make it to Quito that day. Then there was dancing, from the YMCA to salsa, and no one was judged poorly or looked at funnily. For those who could not dance salsa or merengue, we could jump up and down and do the twist if we wanted, and that was just fine by all in attendance. So long as we smiled.
There, the best party ever. And two best friends getting married who were so chill they let a total stranger — if not a friend, by two degrees — crash their party.
Photos to come.
A few days later, four of us hopped on a twelve-hour bus to Loja, which is a post for next week. A few days after that, on April 16th, my cousin gave birth to Nathaneal Badi. Nate has an older sister, Annie Rose, who is a special toddler because she will tell she what she wants before she cries about it. She hardly ever cries. Unbelievable, and the result, no less, of all of my cousin´s waking hours — and sleeping, too — that it astounds me how much work goes into one little being.
So into the world comes one marriage and one child.
Life is fragile, a friend just summed it up.
And out of this world, before his first year of marriage and his 21st birthday, goes one, just a few days later.
There was a couple who helped my parents meet. This couple had a baby. My mom and father spent a day with the couple and their daughter. My mom fell in love with the way my dad interacted with the little one. My parents married a few months later, and that fabulous couple with the baby are still close to our hearts.
The baby grew up. She started school, graduated and started again . . . and again. After two degrees she got married and started her PhD. Just a few days ago her husband was murdered by an unknown assailant on the street. Those are all the details, but what little there is puts the rest of this whole process — marriage, birth, and passing — into sobering perspective.
Prayers for her, prayers for him, and prayers for everyone who love them.
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