June 6th

Has it only been 11 years?

How can that be? It seems like at least 11 more than that.

I was 5 months pregnant at my wedding. He had proposed the August prior. I was 35 at the time. We had been having unprotected sex for two years. I was sure I was infertile. I had given up on the idea of ever having children. And then in February I felt nauseated, and the smell of coffee drove me crazy, and I hesitantly bought a pregnancy test and tested myself at work one day, sitting inside a bathroom stall. When that one turned positive I started shaking and paced outside the office, in the parking lot. 

I tried to call him but he was too busy at work. My sister was the first person I spoke to. She told me not to get too excited, that there was a decent chance the pregnancy would not survive. She told me not to plan on being pregnant at my wedding. That was my first conversation about my pregnancy. 

For the next four months, as my belly and thighs and arms grew thicker, I had my wedding dress taken out and tailored by a local seamstress. We had to keep adjusting it, over and over again. 

As my baby grew, I sat on the floor of our tv room sewing a tapestry that we would hold above our heads at our ceremony as we recited our vows. The tapestry is a landscape of water and mountains and a starry sky, and a little sail boat on which I embroidered the word "forever." I sewed every stitch of the tapestry by hand.

On our wedding day it poured rain. 

Don't they say that is a good omen?

On our wedding day he was so nervous. He was more nervous than I was. I had to calm him down. 

We said our vows and we cried and I serenaded him and we danced.

Our wedding day was also my mother's last birthday. 

She was sick with cancer, with breast cancer that had metasticized to her brain. We were in the year of her remorse. We were in the year of her understanding she was dying. She was in an exhausted rush to apologize for the hurt she had caused. She was in a lethargic race against time to tell me she knew what she had done and she was sorry for it.

She showed up for my wedding. I had told her she really didn't have to, that I really understood. I knew she was dying. I knew it was not at all easy for her to travel. 

But she showed up. My mother showed up, after years of not showing up.

She wore a red wig and a blue sari that was heavily beaded, which she had been excited about finding. She arrived and hugged me and asked what she could do to help. She helped me with the centerpieces for the tables. She seemed truly happy to be doing something to help. 

I had ordered a birthday cake for her, so in the middle of the wedding it was rolled out and the whole crowd sang "Happy Birthday" to her before she blew out the candles. 

It was my mother's last birthday, and it was the last time I ever saw my mother dance.

On our wedding day I couldn't drink because I was pregnant. 

On our wedding day my husband drank heavily because he had a history of alcohol abuse and binge drinking. 

After our wedding, I was the designated driver and drove us to the bed and breakfast I had booked for our mini honeymoon, and we walked into our room and he immediately passed out, and I stayed up and cried because I was a bloated, pregnant, sober bride who had just seen her dying mother. I felt lonely. I held my pregnant belly and I cried. 

11 years ago. Is it really only 11 years? 

My husband is dead, and my mother is dead, but I still have the hand sewn tapestry that says "forever." It is folded up in a drawer because I love it but I don't know if I want to hang it.