Resumo de Wedding By The Sea Part1

Wedding by the Sea From the start, they didn?t want a formal wedding. No bridesmaids, no wedding march, nothing like that. ?The old language and the old ritual are beautiful,? our daughter said, ?but they belong to millions of people. Ken and I want something of our own.? In an old town like ours, tradition binds with silver chains. ?Well,? we said a bit doubtfully, It?s your wedding. How do you want it, and when, and where?? ?At sundown,? said Dana dreamily, shaking back her long blond hair. ?On the beach. As near the ocean as we can get. With a minister who understands how we feel and who can say some words that belong in the twentieth century.? ?But what will you wear?? her mother asked, naturally. ?a long white dress,? she said. ?With a bouquet made of sea oats. But no shoes. I want to feel the sand under my feet. I don?t know why ? but I do.? She?s choosing the beach, I said to myself, because you taught her to love it. Some deep instinct in her knows that life makes tremendous silent statements where sand and salt water meet. She?s following that instinct, and she?s right. So I was pleased, but still a faint, strange sense of apprehension seemed to shadow the pleasure. Nothing to do with Ken ? a fine boy, strong and tall, with a skilled surfer?s easy grace and a teaching career stretching out ahead of him. Nothing to do with anything graspable, really. You?re afraid, I told myself finally, that?s it. afraid that something very important in your life maybe ending. Afraid that a closeness maybe vanishing. You may be able to conceal the feeling, or even deny it, but you won?t be able to push it away. It goes too deep for reason ? or for words. ?Arrange for a big high tide, will you?? said Dana, giving us both at casual hug. ?And no thunderstorms, please.? ?I?m not entirely in charge of such things,? I told her. ?But we?ll do the best we can.? The time came. We stood ? friends, neighbors, relatives -- in a little amphitheatre made by the dunes. Behind us the dying sun hurled spears of amber light. Ahead, the ocean came surging joyously, all ivory and jade and gold. The young minister stood facing us, the crimson lined hood of his robe fluttering in the wind, tongues of foam licking at his heels. He had to lift his voice above the clamor of the waves. Friends, we are here this afternoon to share with Ken and Dana a most important moment in their lives. In place like this they have learned to know and love each other. Now they have decided to live their lives together as husband and wife? In places like this? under the overlay of time, I could feel the pictures form and dissolve in my mind. Years ago on this same beach, not many yards away, a placid pool left by the ebbing tide. One moment a three-year-old playing at the edge. The next moment ? incredibly -- vanished. And the heart-stopping realization, the frantic plunge, the lunge that raised the small dripping figure back into the sunlight, the overwhelming relief that somehow she had remembered what she had been taught about holding her breath. Then the wide gray eyes opening and the small, reproachful voice: ?Why didn?t you come sooner? It?s all dark and bubbly down there!? Or the day years later, when she was perhaps eleven or twelve, and we found the old pelican, sick and shivering. Nothing could be done; we had to watch him die. And the piercing pain of compassion striking the unarmored spirit. ?Oh,? she said finally through her tears, groping for something to ease her anguish, ?I?m glad we didn?t know him very well.? And then, still later, the golden afternoons when she would go out saying gravely that she had to walk her dog, but knowing that we knew she really hoped to find Ken on a dune with arms clasped around her knees and her heart full of love and longing and the big German shepherd motionless as a statue by her side. In places like this? Why does time slides by so fast, I asked myself. Why does nothing stay?

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