A Busy Week ahead...

This week, barring Hurricane Emily or other disaster, I will be going to see my oldest niece get married.

I remember the day she was born. My sister-in-law had been going into false labor several times, and twice before we had sat in a hospital waiting area for hours until they decided to send her home.

This time, my mom, dad and I were bowling in our Sunday night bowling league, when my brother called. We finished the game, and hurried to the hospital to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

I was crocheting a big afghan, which was handy, cause when I got tired, I tied off the yarn, and used it for a cover. I fell asleep, I think, for awhile.

Suddenly, they wheeled an incubator through the waiting room on the way to the nursery, where we got our first look at her. My mother, almost in tears, cried, "She is so beautiful!" And she was.

And now, twenty three years later, she is going to be a bride. A poet, like her auntie, a student studying criminal justice (she used to want to work for the FBI, but I think that has changed), working in the hotel business (which I wouldn't be surprised if this became her real career), and gracious and sweet.

The little girl who I told endless versions of "Once upon a time, there was a good and bad little girl, who the bad witch wanted to take away for being mean to her little sister, but the good fairy rescued her, because she wasn't a bad little girl, but who loved her little sister." This is the girl who fell in love with a silly movie called Labyrinth, and who could tell you every line in it. Who for some reason went gaga over Elvis, and the time she got to go to Graceland, she came home angry that her great grandmother had had my mom so late in life, because that meant she was born too late to see Elvis alive. The girl who liked lizards, and English and science, but not history (much to her auntie's disapointment!), who understands the importance of family and who keeps trying to talk me into making her a poodle skirt like the one she had when she was a little girl.

Grown up.

I better be sure to pack enough hankies.