Come Rain or Come Shine
Thirty years ago this September 7th, in the small den of a rented summer cottage on Long Island’s East End, I sat on a couch, biting my nails, eyes glued to the television’s Weather Channel – pre-Internet, kids – watching the trajectory of two hurricanes barreling toward the site of my wedding. My beach wedding. Or, as my grandmother called it, my farkakteh “outside wedding.” Only a week away, it was a wedding I had envisioned my entire life – black tie and barefoot – an impracticality that never gave me pause – featuring my betrothed and me, bathed in golden sunshine, sand between our toes, wedding finery only faintly fluttering in the ocean breeze. Howling winds? Teeming rain? What bride is ever prepared for a hurricane? Hurricanes plural? Come on.
Well-meaning friends called on land lines to ask if I knew there was hazardous weather predicted. “Did you see?” “Did you hear?” Yes. I heard. Yes. I knew. Were they kidding? I thought about nothing else. Not about my impending marriage to a man I met on a Friday and moved in with the following Monday, an action I told my therapist about as I explained I wouldn’t be needing her anymore because I had met “the one.” She suggested a few closing sessions about rash behavior and impulsivity. I agreed to those sessions and then never showed up. Instead, I later sent her my wedding announcement in The New York Times, passive-aggression being way more on-brand for me than impulsivity.
The names of the hurricanes were Edouard and Fran and they swept all thoughts of marriage out of my head, leaving me only to swirl with thoughts of a disaster wedding. I pictured my hair wet and matted from rain, vows going unheard in howling winds, storms tossing banquet chairs around, my wedding dress becoming drenched in rising sea water, and the only sound audible above the deafening squall would be my grandmother asking for the 100th time, “Who gets married on a beach during hurricane season?”
My soon-to-be husband told me that rain or shine I would be the most beautiful bride and weather didn’t matter… but he also told me he was headed to the hardware store for extra strong, extra-large umbrellas. Through big slow tears, I continued my Weather Channel vigil, so focused that when the door to the cottage unexpectedly opened, I leapt up, heart banging in my chest.
Our wedding caterer, Brent, burst into the house to deliver this news to me: “The hurricanes are going to make a direct hit! The whole island may go dark. We are going to need generators!” he panted. “But first the generators will go to the hospitals…” Dramatically, he paused. “For the injured.” And then, like a sudden wind, Brent was gone. I had only a second to ponder that when I became distracted by a noise from the back yard.
I walked out to the edge of the property. One of the reasons we had rented this house was that it abutted a massive sunflower farm where we could stage pre-wedding photographs, sunflowers being at their tallest and most vibrant in September.
Cautiously, I rounded the back of the tent to the sunflower field. Or, should I say, what had been the sunflower field. Apart from four spindly flowers on the farm’s perimeter, every single sunflower had been razed by a tractor driver preparing for the next harvest. I ran to the front of the tractor, á la Tiananmen Square, waved my hands at the driver, and begged him to let the four flowers remain, explaining between deep choking sobs about Edouard, Fran, generators, extra-large umbrellas and girlhood wedding dreams. Whether out of understanding, or fear, he left those last four flowers standing.
When my fiancé returned, I told him, through gasps and tears, about the sunflowers, the current trajectory of Edouard and Fran, and about needing generators. He listened carefully, full of understanding, yet undisturbed and utterly at peace.
“Why, I asked incredulously, “are you so calm?”
“Because the wedding is still days away. We don’t know for sure what the weather will be and even if it’s bad, we’re still getting married. To me, nothing else matters.” And with that he went off. I heard him whistling. Happily.
Years later, when doctors found a large mass on my husband’s kidney – the prognosis being dire and involving multiple organs - I heard him whistling in the kitchen while whipping up a Thanksgiving sweet potato recipe. As I did all those years ago, and so many times in the intervening years, I asked:
“Why are you so calm?”
“Because we don’t have all the tests back yet and until we do there’s no point in worrying.”
And with that he spooned a dollop of sweet potato into my mouth and went back to his whistling.
This has been the dance of our marriage: me, on the ledge, sick with worry; and my husband, ebulliently optimistic, prepared for the unexpected. And always, whistling.
Over the past thirty years we have had far more pleasure than sorrow, and more sunny days than not, but the phrase “Into this life some rain will fall” has been apt. Our home has flooded no less than five times. We have endured countless losses, particularly that of the single mother who raised my husband, and every day we navigate parenting four children, a storm for which no extra-strong umbrellas exist.
My husband’s medical scare turned out to be just that - a scare. He recovered from surgery with half a kidney and full health, optimism still wholly intact. As is the whistling.
The night before our wedding my almost-husband suggested I leave the Weather Channel couch and come to the backyard. I held his hand as he walked me to the wedding tent that had been set up for the party after the beach ceremony. He opened the flap and revealed a perfectly set candlelit table for two. Ray Charles sang “Come Rain or Come Shine” from a CD player resting on the grass. Smiling, he pulled out a chair for me to sit. He had made my favorite meal - grilled tuna with corn and tomatoes from our local farmstand – and poured us glasses of wine.
While the wind whipped outside, we sat for hours laughing at the absurdity of those four remaining sunflowers, the dramatics of Brent, and the high probability that our wedding party would be soaked to the skin standing on that beach. In twenty hours, we’d be surrounded by family and friends, but at that moment, there was just us. Just a man and woman in love, enveloped in a small circle of candlelight, while all else faded away into shadow. We stayed until the candles burned down, held hands across the table, and every time the winds shook the tent to its foundation, we held on just a bit tighter.
It rained throughout the day that September 7th, but not during the ceremony. The wind was so ferocious wind I had to lower my head like a linebacker to keep my veil from blowing away and the ocean kicked up spray on our guests, who huddled together to stay warm. In our pre-wedding photos, those four sunflowers are prominently featured, as is the brown mud of the recently razed farm. My grandmother - may she rest in peace - never forgave me for making her the barefoot part of the night, where sand snuck into her pantyhose. But she happily watched as my husband and I danced our first dance under the lights of the tent, a happy couple with a long life ahead of them, who would weather it all… together.
Happy 30th Anniversary, my love.
