The Wedding Picture

 

I hadn’t seen this picture before. It was tucked away in one of the boxes I’d found in the attic. There was so much to clean after Dad passed. Mom looked happy. Even in the old black and white you could see the glow of a joyous bride. She was always happy though.

 

Dad stood proud and tall next to her. Just like I always remembered him doing. Always there; the strong silent type. There was a touch of a smile on his otherwise stoic face. It was rare to ever see him smile. He was an enduringly serious man with such a dry sense of humor, but never an angry man. I couldn’t remember him ever lashing out in rage at either Mama or me. He was stern, but always in control.

 

Mama had told me many times that I had just been a gleam in my Gramps’s eye in this picture. Well, maybe not a gleam, more like an irritating eyelash that you can’t get out.

I chuckled to myself as I recalled my dad telling me the tale. It had been a shotgun wedding. Gramps had been so angry when Mama told him she was in the family-way. He had them in front of the preacher that very hour. Gramps had told her “that boy was a no-good-son-of-a-gun.” He had forbidden her to even speak to “that boy” at church socials.

This picture had only been taken to hush the wagging tongues by proving that Mama’s tummy was flat at the time of the wedding. I thought I could even see a glimpse of the barrel of Gramps old hunting rifle.

 

It had been a long pregnancy, nearly two years. The hearty sound of my dad’s guffaw brought a smile to my aching heart.

 

Mama always did get her way.

Visits: 54