MY YOUNGEST sister just said “Yes.”
I only found out a few days ago. We’ve all been expecting it, though. Carey and her boyfriend Jay had been getting so close so quickly that it was only a matter of time before he popped the question. He finally proposed on a trip they took to Chicago, the only place besides Colorado that Carey has ever lived.
I’m excited for her. I’m also fighting down a whole host of conflicting thoughts and feelings.
Some of it is a sense of deja vu. It’s only been three or four years since my other sister Leslie married, after all. Can it really be time again?
Some of it is nostalgia. Carey was the smallest of us who nearly became the tallest of us. I can still see Dad calling her “Mouse” before tucking her in at night, or hear her old nickname of “Carebear” that still refuses to die. Thinking of Mouse as a married woman floors me, as though I’d just seen the paper boy enter the Indy 500.
But there’s also a memory that makes me chuckle, a promise that I wonder if Carey’s going to hold me to.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I promised to sing at her wedding.
Check that. She MADE me promise to sing at her wedding.
We were both kids at the time — at least, I was in my teens and Carey is four years younger, so you can do the math. I’m not sure how the conversation got onto the subject, but I’m pretty sure my Mom’s old Placido Domingo tape was playing at the time, the one that included a duet with John Denver on “Perhaps Love.”
If you don’t know the song, go find it. It’s a ballad by Denver, one that looks at love in all its guises:
Perhaps love is like the ocean, full of conflict, full of change,
Like a fire when it’s cold outside, thunder when it rains,
If I could live forever and all my dreams come true,
My memories of love will be of you.
Carey heard it, as she’d heard it many times before. And she told me, in approximately these words, “When I get married, I want you to sing that at my wedding.”
Not if. When. My sister was a very certain person in those days.
Of course I said yes. What else is a big brother for? I mean, besides help with homework, and sitting up during nightmares, and ratting her out when she drew on the walls ...
Ahem. Anyway, as I said, I agreed.
I doubt she remembers that anymore. I doubt even more that she’d hold me to it. But I’ll be ready if she does. Nervous, but ready.
You just don’t say “no” when a wedding is involved.
We’re busy people these days. Full schedules, full lives, full everything. Most of us hesitate to take on more obligation without at least checking the load: “Why don’t I look at my schedule and call you back?”
But weddings are different. There’s so much joy involved and so much that needs doing that you almost can’t help saying “yes” to a piece of it. After all, these two people are about to make one of the biggest promises there is. How can we back down on a smaller commitment?
It’s almost like dealing with a tornado. No one refuses aid then, because the need is great and emotions are running high. That’s just as true here, but on a much happier part of the scale.
So I’ll dig out my sheet music and warm up my vocal cords. It may be unnecessary. But you never know.
If the marriage of your little sister isn’t worth singing about, what is?
Scott Rochat’s e-mail address is rochat@emporiagazette.com.