Bodega Ridge | Dare Boldly

On the ferry to Galiano Island Alexis, Lele, Me, CJ

Mother-in-law.

C.C. calls me this as we drive back from the coast.

Mother-in-law. That’s who you are now, he says as we follow the ribbon of highway leading us back towards home on the other side of the Rockies.

We have just spent two weeks away. Wedding prep. Alexis and Jame’s wedding and then a week of relaxation at Tofino with Beaumont, The Wave Hound.

I hadn’t thought about the fact I’d be carrying a new label after the wedding.

I roll the word around on my tongue. Savour it. Taste it. It has the heady essence of a piece of St. Agur sliding across my tongue. Sharp. Tangy. Deliciously smooth. Earthy. I like it. I like how it feels. How it sounds. How it rolls around in my mind stretching who I know myself to be to include a new way of being.

Rainbow in the evening; JOY is in the air!

I have a son-in-law, or as I like to think of him, ‘son-in-love’.

He is the husband to my daughter. The man to whom, at the edge of a cliff over-looking the ocean beyond and under a blue sky through which an eagle soared lazily in the late afternoon sun, she pledged unwavering love forever more.

I have a married daughter.

It is a new place; this mother of a married daughter. A new way of seeing my daughter and her world. And me.

I remember when she was growing up, how she loved to play ‘bride’ and organize make-believe weddings, and re-enactments of The Titanic. She created fabulous outfits, had favourite parts to play and favourite roles for those around her to fulfill.

There was never a role called ‘mother-in-law.’

I’ve had no practice and am surprised at how this role requires a mental shift, a lengthening out of my vision to include a larger perspective. It speaks to deepening of family. Of roots. Of possibilities and connections. Of sharing Christmases and special occasions. A deepening of love.

I have thought about what it means to know my daughter is married. To know she has someone to whom she will turn first and always. It has felt good to know she would have him by her side. Steadfast and true. He is kind. Generous. Quirkily funny and very very smart.

I like who he is but I hadn’t thought about what it means to be his mother-in-law. To have him as my ‘son-in-love’.

Somehow, I had thought nothing would change. That life would continue just as it was without any adjustments.

And it does. And it doesn’t. It is all as it is and as it is is wonderful and different and yet beautifully the same.

My eldest daughter got married on September 10th.

It was beautiful.

Magical.

Special.

She left nothing to chance. Thought of every little detail and was prepared for every eventuality. And in all her preparations, she managed to leave room for the whimsical, the mystical, the magic.

It was divine. A day of love flowing freely on warm ocean breezes. Of family and friends laughing in the sunlight and dancing under the stars. It was a perfect beginning to their life lived as husband and wife.

(As I did not have my camera/iphone with me on the ‘big day’, these photos are all from friends — thank you CJ and Tamz and everyone else who shared them on FB. And if you’re ever looking for a magical island wedding resort – Bodega Ridge is stunning. The staff are incredible, the location amazing and the facilities and food divine)

Heart Song
Acrylic
Louise Gallagher 2016

When she was a little girl, my eldest daughter Alexis, loved to play ‘wedding’. Her entire kindergarten class knew that when it came time to play, if wedding was on the agenda, (which she inevitably made sure it was) not only would she plan the whole thing, but she would play the leading role of The Bride and some reluctant male classmate would be coerced into being her groom.

No matter who the groom, or the attendants she would carefully pick amongst her classmates, Alexis always made a beautiful bride.

One month from today, Alexis will be walking down the aisle bringing to fruition all her childhood planning.

And I know she will be a beautiful bride, just as she is a beautiful woman, inside and out.

It is who she is.

Last year, when C.C. and I were married, Alexis and her fiance J, made the decision to change the venue for their wedding from the more formal yacht club setting in Vancouver to a rustic haven on one of the Gulf Islands.

Where the theme for our wedding was along the lines of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”, this wedding comes with more explicit instructions to set just the right sartorial tone. “Bohemian Gatsby: tweeds & tuxes, silk & sequins, fringe & faux fur. ” which Alexis and J explain in their style guide, as “Backwoods Blacktie Style Guide”. Guests, once they step onto the dance floor, “draped in sequins and silks and tweeds and tuxes and sipping on some bootleg whiskey,” will remark that “the partygoers look as if they were plucked from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.”

It has been a gift to watch (albeit from afar) my eldest daughter grow from childhood fantasies of the ‘perfect wedding’ to an accomplished adult capable of co-creating, a wedding that reflects both her style and J’s desire for an event that brings family and friends together to celebrate love, joy and marriage. Even more importantly, in spite of broken dreams of childhood from having parents divorce and other traumas, it has been wonderful to watch them grow a relationship founded on shared values, a desire to bring out the best in each other and an understanding of the courage and compassion needed to stand beside one another when times are tough and when sailing is smooth.

J and Alexis are doing it all with grace and in the mystical nature that imbues the spirit of the Gulf Islands with wonder and awe, we may just be lucky to witness not only the love shining between them, but also the dolphins leaping in joyous exultation as Alexis and J walk down the aisle. Or, as is written in the style guide, “Waiting the bride and groom’s arrival, you look out across the Tricomali Channel just in time to see a school of Pacific dolphins bound amongst the waves.”

With Alexis creating, there is no telling what miracles will happen.

And here’s a little bit of musical whimsy to set the mood.