The phone rings, it\u2019s my daughter. “Mom, what are you wearing to the wedding?” “Remember the lovely two-piece, gray silk dress I wore at your daughter\u2019s Bat Mitzvah?” “Mom, she was 13. She\u2019s 31!” “Oh,” I said. “It\u2019s vintage!” And so I wore that dress at my grandson\u2019s wedding in Palm Beach. I had found an old girdle in the corner of a drawer, and although I couldn\u2019t really bend in it, the dress fit fine, and everyone said I looked great. (Well, great for 83, anyway.) The wedding pulled together about 40 members of our extended family, plus my son\u2019s high school and college friends and, of course, the bride\u2019s family\u2019s assorted cousins and friends. We were 300 people trying to reconnect with the old and to get to know the new. The tall, balding man came rushing over with a hug \u2014 the last time I saw him, he was 16-years-old, sitting at my kitchen table at 2 a.m. discussing colleges, careers and girls. He introduced me to his son, saying, “She knew me at your age.” The cousins, nieces and nephews last seen thirty-plus years ago \u2014 when they were kids \u2014had kids of their own. We were able, to my surprise, to pick up where we left off \u2014 talked of intimate life issues not usually shared with strangers. I learned about rocky marriages, difficult children, work problems, and also about the successes, the proud moments, the hopes for the future. My husband had looked forward to meeting all these relatives from my past life, so I missed him especially, but my role as a widowed matriarch was a new adventure. I took advantage of it \u2014 dispensing advice from my elderly perch. Weddings are a joyous opportunity to see people we were once connected to but lost track of, to spend time with those whose genes we share, but never met. The new in-laws had organized everything to perfection \u2014 from a dinner at Mara a Lago \u2014 Donald Trump\u2019s old haunting grounds \u2014 to the wedding in the Flagler Museum decorated with white orchids and candlelight. Trolleys would pick us up and take us back to our hotels. The newlyweds, obviously in love, were a joy to see. Everyone agreed that they were perfectly matched. The families liked each other. We were each happy about the choice our children made. I love my new granddaughter, as they do their new son. It is wonderful when the newly-blended families raised their children with similar values. It makes it easy not only to feel close, but to also become friends. Having quiet time with both my children, my daughter from Toronto and my son from London, with their respective spouses and children was a treat seldom achieved due to distances and schedules. I savored every moment. It just so happens that my three grandsons are incredibly handsome, brilliant, kind and fun to be with. I danced with all three to very loud music and to lyrics they knew, but I couldn\u2019t understand. The hotel we all stayed at, the Breakers, has five swimming pools, several restaurants and endless beaches. The thoughtful in-laws had rented two cabanas for us by the pool where we all congregated during the day, ordering Caesar salads and fish tacos with small children playing together, every one of them attached to hand-held video games. After the final after-the-wedding brunch at our in-laws\u2019 home, we wondered when we would all meet again. Many had to stay on as European airports shut down due to the erupting volcano. Not a bad place to await departures. I flew home to unpacking, stacks of mail, phone calls, e-mails and cheerful greetings from friends who said they had missed me, but especially to happy memories of a perfect wedding in a perfect setting, warmed by the souvenir of being lovingly-embraced by our new family.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The phone rings, it\u2019s my daughter. “Mom, what are you wearing to the wedding?” “Remember the lovely two-piece, gray silk dress I wore at your daughter\u2019s Bat Mitzvah?” “Mom, she was 13. She\u2019s 31!” “Oh,” I said. “It\u2019s vintage!” And so I wore that dress at my grandson\u2019s wedding in Palm Beach. I had found […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Doing it Better: May 6, 2010","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11552,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-opinion","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}