So I’ve been out of the broom closet for some time. My stepdad has been convinced that I am going straight to hell since I was about 12, so there’s no reason to bother talking to him about it. My mom is cool and my birth father doesn’t seem to understand. I mean, he said he did, but in the end, I don’t think he did because he still keeps sending me the “God Bless America” email forwards. So whatever. My uncle stopped after I had my talk with him. But then again, my ex-mother-in-law still sends me those forwards and we talk about how I’m Pagan all the time.
Well, I’m getting married and I really want to have a Pagan wedding. Oh it won’t be a real traditional Hellenismos wedding because, well, Mr. Rabbit and I already live together and there’s already two half grown kids in the picture and we don’t want anymore. I thought about having a procession from my mom’s house to our house (since we walk in between all the time anyway) but that sort of blows the whole “keep it simple” concept. So we decided to have our friend who is the High Druid of our local ADF Druid Grove come to the house and marry us. But it can’t be too short and sweet and simple because I love ritual and I need it.
So I’m inviting the Circle to the wedding rite because it only makes sense and besides, processing by yourself is boring. So I thought since I was having a ceremony I wanted my mom and my sisters there (one sister is in Europe, so she won’t be there, and the other sister is.. um… not sure right now, possibly Africa so she won’t be there either, but my youngest sister- she’ll be there!) and my mother said to me that I should talk to my grandmother as well. Now, in reality I would love to have my grandmother at my wedding, but I don’t want to upset her with my weird Pagan ways. I mean, we’re going to be invoking Hera and Zeus and running around in circles waving torches and peacock feathers and yelling Hymen!
I mean really.
So I decided I would talk to my grandma about the whole thing and she could talk to my grandpa. (I would have talked to him at the same time but he was napping). So I sat there while my mother and grandma talked about the family reunion for like two hours. And I got more and more nervous as time went on. Now my mom knew why I was there, so I was also getting a little annoyed with her. Finally I blurted out that I wanted to talk about the wedding. And I told Grandma “I would like you to be at the wedding, but I am afraid you might be shocked by what we do.” And she looked at me and she said “Shocked? In this family?” (I paraphrase) and I said “Well, it’s not going to be a Christian wedding or a Civil ceremony, it’s going to be a Pagan ritual” and do you know my grandma started talking about how her minister said that Pagans were the first religion, etc. And I really didn’t know what to say, so I babbled nonsense about how Pagans and Christians used to fight and how whoever was the state religion was cruel to the other and neither one of them was innocent or something. And then she started asking questions, which was cool. I was prepared for that. And then she asked “So you don’t believe in Christ at all?” and just as I was preparing myself to answer this one, a tornado hit.
I’m not kidding. A frigging tornado.
But we didnt’ realize right away that it was a tornado. So my mom and I ran to the back door to try to get the cover on my grandpa’s boat, but it was hopeless because the tarp was flying away and the force of the wind wasn’t letting us out the door. So we gave up on that and I tried to get back to the subject at hand, but then the electricity went out and the tornado siren went off, so everyone huffed and puffed about that for awhile.
Finally, I got back on track and said “Well, I would like you to come but if you won’t be comfortable, I would understand.” and she said, “Why wouldn’t I be comfortable?” and I could tell that she really had no idea why I thought she’d be uncomfortable. And then my mother said, “Well I think what she’s saying is that she wants to know that you won’t judge her.” (which really wasn’t what I was saying) and my grandma said “Well she should have her wedding how she wants, it’s her wedding.” Then turned to me “Will you be uncomfortable?” And I was like nonono but then my phone rang.
My daughter had just been dropped off (early) after work and was locked out of the house, so we had to hurry up and go get her cause we couldn’t leave her out in the storm.
*sigh*
So. My grandma is totally cool. But I am a dork. She’ll be back in town in two weeks for my cousin’s graduation party. I will talk to her again then.
No major tornado damage to our house or my mother’s. She lost a tree, but she said it was already dead and some branches came down in both of our yards. Unfortunately many of our neighbors weren’t so lucky. My mom’s next door neighbor lost seven fruit trees and our neighbor lost a huge old oak tree. Twisted right up from the roots.
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