"We Love Because It's The Only True Adventure"

-Nikki Giovanni



I leave for the wedding tomorrow. It's in California and I have planned and packed and accessorized until every single detail has been accounted for and put on a list. And checked off. and rechecked. Not that I am anal or anything.

I have talked at length about shopping for what I am wearing to the wedding, but I haven't really talked much about the wedding. It will be a lovely wedding. It will be in the cool of a California late afternoon, in a gorgeous backyard, with music and food and love and laughter. Oh. And two brides. Did I forget to mention that? That it is a gay wedding? That my sister is gay? I think I did forget to mention that. Because I forget. She is my sister. She is my gay sister. And I don't really care about the gay part because she is funny and sweet and generous and loving and the gay part is really just one small part of her life.

I didn't really know my sister until I was an adult. She is 8 years older than me and left home when I was very young. It was a different time back then. You weren't gay and on well-loved TV shows and able to legally marry in three states and accepted as perfectly normal by a large percentage of the population. The word homosexual was whispered behind closed doors, never discussed in families and California was the most open-minded place in the United States. So she went there. And stayed there. For years.

Finally, letters were written, phone calls were put through, overtures were made and she came to visit. And we became friends. 8 years became nothing. We were just alike in so many, many ways. We could crack each other up. Laugh until we cried. She and her daughter were in my wedding. We vacationed together. We spent holidays together. We shared everything. We still do.

And now she has found her soul mate and they will marry and live happily ever after. And I will be there. I will always be there. Just like she will be there for me. And she may tell her love as they stand in front of the crowd that she will be there until "death do us part" and I told my husband that too and we meant it.

But I will be there for my sister too. Until death do us part.