The invitation came.....

Yesterday, in the US Postal service 'mail' came the invitation to Mimi and Tim's wedding. I wish I knew enough about media to reproduce it here for you. But I don't.

It's in odd colors and invites us to be there on October 12 in Brooklyn. The address was, in wonderful calligraphy, The Father and Mother of the Bride and our address.

I just took a deep breath. My little girl is getting married. (Of course, she is 36 years old and not a 'little girl' by a long shot. But in my heart and mind she is that little girl running down a hill in my father's front yard that I took a picture of and have it in a frame downstairs. Toe-head child, jaw set, arms pumping, 4 years old, running.

Even when I pronounce Mimi and Tim, "husband and wife", which I shall do on that day (given permission to do so by the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island and the City Clerk of New York City) I will see, in my mind, that four year old puffing down that hill that I captured on a real camera--not on a smart phone.

And she is breath-taking. Really. And always has been.

And Tim is her mirror image.

They'll be with us 8 days from now on Oak Island, North Carolina where she went for 17 years or so, with Bern and me and her brother Josh, until neither of them wanted to go to a place so deserted and cut off from the world as that. And then, maybe 6 years ago, she called to find out where that place was and she and Tim went and ever since we've gone with them, along with John, my longtime friend, and Sherrie, Bern's long time friend.

We'll leave a week from today, all of us--John and Sherrie and Bern and me in John's Landrover and Mimi and Tim in Mimi's Forrester, which is her first car, being a NYC girl but needed because she works for Jacob's Pillow now and has an apartment in Stockbridge, MA as well as the apartment she shares with Tim in Brooklyn.

And we'll spend a week on that deserted island (since it is a "family beach" and school will be in session and we'll have a hundred yards or so of private beach, like we always do after Labor Day.

I remember so much about Mimi from her early childhood.

Now she's getting married.

Now Tim will really be our son-in-law, though it's felt that way for a decade or so.

And a week from tomorrow they'll be with us again.

I can hardly wait. I love them both so.