tough love.

Last week was not a good week. On Thursday, March 28th, we got the terrible news that Marc's grandfather (and, of course, my at that time very soon-to-be grandfather-in-law) had passed away, quite suddenly, without illness or fanfare. Marc's family had been spending most of their time getting themselves more and more excited about the wedding, and so the death hit like a hammer.

My memories of Grand-Pa Tommy (their spelling of grandpa...) are somewhat sparse, since he suffered a speech-impairing stroke a few years ago, before I had much of a chance to get to know him. But I recently received a birthday card from him (apparently he was known for his affinity toward Hallmark) that made me cry. Granted, it's been an emotional couple of months, but the way he underlined "such a special granddaughter..." well, you can probably fill in the details.

Anyway, as heavy and miserable as everyone felt preparing for the funeral, they really turned it around for the wedding. The wedding became a major affirmation of life for at least half of my family. It was really wonderful to see everyone cheerful and friendly again. And as for Tommy, I think we knew that he'd wanted to be there so badly that he'd probably made it. After all, he never missed a party, and this was, without a doubt, a party.