A bit of Bryce's family tree education, Bryce is one of four siblings. Bryce's mom and dad first had Bryce's brother, Mike. He was soon followed by Bryce, then Bryce's oldest of his sisters, Katherine, then Bryce's youngest of his sisters, Ella.
Bryce's parents had already moved out of state to be closer to Bryce's brother and his wife and kids around this time. I had spent the night at Bryce's house for a few days about a week before the wedding to finish up some last-minute things for the ceremony.
Just a matter of five days before the big day, I was awoken by my phone ringing first thing in the morning. It was Bryce's dad (both of his parents have essentially adopted me as their own), telling me that my soon-to-be brother-in-law, Bryce's sister's husband and father of our niece and nephew, had just died. He was hit by a drunk driver and killed on the scene. His funeral was just days before our wedding day. Bryce's parents had already planned on coming to town for our wedding, so they ended up coming early for Katherine and her kids, as well as helping with funeral plans.
We offered to cancel the wedding, but Katherine insisted we still have it since plans had already been made and everything paid for. Very solemn days lead up to our ceremony — now incorporating another ceremony, though this one a drastic change in energy and devastating in nature, into the week. Our niece, the daughter of Bryce's sister and my soon-to-be brother-in-law, still took part in the wedding — as she didn't really know what was going on. Her and I were already close by this point, her already calling me her aunt, and I recall her coming up to me at the funeral.
"Aunt Cece," she began (I'm using my alias in this context), "Daddy is sleeping."
"I know he is, baby." I replied. She was maybe four or five around this point… and her next words still haunt me to this day.
"Yeah…" she went on to say, "but he isn't going to wake up… he's sleeping forever."
I was at a loss for words. I didn't know how to console her at this point, other than just to tell her I knew… but I didn't know. This was before I had any significant losses in my life… I was hit like a ton of bricks head-on by an oncoming semi-truck.
I just… let's just move along.
Whatever else you need to know as far as this part goes, is that Bryce's sister came for a small part of our wedding, which I understood. I was surprised she even came for that… I'd be rolled up in a corner in the fetal position rocking back and forth if I were her! But our niece still played the role of our flower girl for us.
Let's mix things up and get off the more serious topics for a bit and onto the more positive of the blind items, per sé.
Let's delve into the more fun stuff and talk about… drum roll, please… our wedding!
Some unfortunate hiccups occurred during this time that were upsetting; however, I'll try to keep those to a minimum because they were just that… unfortunate hiccups. Nothing comparable to what we had just dealt with earlier on throughout that week. One of the negatives, I'll mention right now, we'll just go ahead and get it out of the way.
After initially wanting the wedding to take place on July 7th, 2007, which would have, of course, been 7 / 7 / 07. Seven is one of my favorite numbers, and my other favorite number is three, and there were three of the sevens. After trying to make numerous arrangements for that date, we quickly discovered that apparently, everyone else seemed to have the same date in mind for their weddings. That's okay, we don't want to do something everyone else is doing, anyway. Not only that but that increases the odds of the possibility of guests having to choose between different weddings on that same day.
Sure, the whole date rescheduling thing was a bummer, but it was nothing to stress over and was easily fixed for the better — so that wasn't the negative thing that happened I mentioned earlier. Honestly, I wasn't sure our event would have been chosen over someone else's event… my self-esteem was already at an all-time low. But that was not the main reason for the concern over wedding guests — or the lack thereof. No, the stress I had already been harboring was just exacerbated by what happened with my dad and his entire side of the family.
Around this time, contact between my dad and I was… existent… but, barely holding on by a slowly unraveling thread. The temporary restraining orders against my dad had been lifted by this time. I have always wanted my dad to walk me down the aisle. Despite all our issues with one another, I still had songs picked out that I had chosen years before to be played at my wedding as a special father/daughter kinda thing.
Songs like "Daddy's Hands," was one of the ones pre-selected — and was also a song my momma sang for my Papaw on special occasions. I even have a copy of her singing it impeccably and beautifully on tape, so I already had a special connection with that song. More songs included Bob Carlisle's song "Butterfly Kisses," popular during my upbringing. Songs like those had been fixtures in my ideal wedding itinerary I planned extensively in my head over the years.
Perhaps one of the many other moving parts of the affair could have gone over a bit more smoothly had I not worried so much about that specific one. I gave my dad the option to walk me down the aisle — I had even gone so far to plan all the details out, because for me, there was no question as to who would walk me down the aisle. In my head, my dad had always fulfilled that role… despite our current status.
So, I asked my dad to walk me down the aisle — and his response was like an adhesive bandage quickly being ripped off an area with one hair too many… it stung like a bitch.
Despite how little was said in the response… the message received was loud and clear.
My dad would not be walking me, who at one time used to be daddy's little girl, down the aisle at her wedding. The wedding was growing closer and closer, so I relied on the man that I knew would never say no — my Papaw.
I asked my Papaw (my momma's dad) to escort me down the aisle — his answer was a no-brainer, agreeing to do this without so much as another word needing to be spoken. My Papaw answered with a resounding yes, but with one condition — that he gets to wear his cowboy boots.
I saw this trend on social media not too long ago where people would give two individual terms to describe where you reside or where you're originally from and see how many people can correctly guess the answer. We are Native American Indian, so we already have that, but we are also big into John Wayne, cowboys, the Old West, and one of the state's college football teams here is the Cowboys.
So, my home state truly is the land of Cowboys and Indians — no joke. But getting back to the point, yes. My Papaw ended up proudly walking me down the aisle when my dad chose not to.