First dance

Published 8:43 pm Thursday, September 22, 2011

Support group for grievers begins Friday, the headline read. I was

instantly swept back to four years ago, Sept. 22, 2007, the day my wife,

Tina, died at age 48 of complications of diabetes.

I remembered meeting with doctors at OHSU and hearing there was no hope of recovery and it was time to remove life support. I remembered those dark days six months later when I was part of a local grief group expertly led by Teresa Smith-Dixon.

At times I thought the fog of grief would never lift.

But life is nothing except change. Fours years later, almost to the day, on 9-10-11, I was married to the woman I call Wonder.

Thanks, cousins, for being at the post-wedding barbecue in the Athena city park and providing my first opportunity to crowd surf. Bridegrooms, you see, get special privileges. No alcohol was involved. It was just good, clean fun.

At age 54, I have absolutely, positively not “done it all.”

Other things are planned and don’t happen. Wonder and I had ordered and designed Chuck Taylor high-top Converse to wear at the wedding reception first dance – hydrangea-blue shoes with red hearts on which “9-10-11” was printed.

What a doozy of a dance we had planned. We’d do a version of the spastic Elaine dance, from the TV show “Seinfeld.” Perhaps you know the dance. Then the bridesmaids would interrupt and say, “You can’t dance like that here,” and we’d launch into as romantic a dance as our four left feet would allow.

However, time does barrel rolls and other stunts. As Wonder and I circulated through the crowd in the reception hall, time evaporated. Soon we found ourselves outside the church racing through a gantlet of guests showering us with parchment butterflies, and then jumping into the Prius to make our getaway.

Later, on reflection, we decided missing the first dance wasn’t a bad thing. To compensate, we chose to have a first dance every day of our lives – or at least the ones we spend together in this long-distance, two-homes-90-miles-apart marriage.

Yes, after being engaged 1 1/2 years, the big day arrived on 9-10-11. Planning a wedding is a monumental undertaking. But now, the wedding dress and tuxes were ready. The pre-wedding music was recorded, and a sound man designated to hit the right buttons at the right time. The slide show was prepared. The floral arrangements were made, the arbor purchased and the cake ordered. The wedding photographer was lined up, and the guests invited.

The six hours of pre-marital counseling were finished, and the honeymoon arrangements made.

Wonder and I got engaged on Valentine’s Day 2010 during the Vancouver, B.C., Winter Olympics, and since my bride had once worked for a software company and lived in North Vancouver, she wanted to show me her favorite places.

It seemed appropriate to go to the site of the Winter Olympics for our honeymoon. The trip, it seemed, would be a blending of the rings of the Olympics with the rings of our marriage.

When the wedding commenced, the first surprise was the minister, Wonder’s cousin, breaking into the song “Oh Happy Day.”

The second surprise was that my beautiful bride was able to descend the staircase like a movie star and not fall like a Hollywood stuntwoman. Wearing the same golden shoes her mother got married in 55 years earlier provided the magic we needed.

Our guests – many of whom arrived from alarming distances away – may have been surprised by the Scottish theme and the bagpiper who, after bride and groom shared a first kiss, led the wedding party around the church sanctuary in a victory lap.

The pain of Tina’s death will never be entirely gone. But I chose to remember the happier times of those 24 years. I also choose now, with my new partner in this adventure called life, to awaken every day with hope of having yet one more first dance.

Reach the author at jpetersen@lagrandeobserver.com.