For the wedding of
Jessica Juzenas and Josh Gershon
July 4, 2004
Written and delivered, with much sniffling, by the bride's mother,
Rev. Karen Juzenas
As far as that last one was concerned, I was overjoyed. The truth is I am a terrible dancer. You know how it is at wedding dances: the bride�s mother has to dance with the groom�s father, and the groom, and the bride�s father, and by the end of the night, half the men here would be limping because of me.
Even though I�m not very good at it myself, I really enjoy watching couples dance. You know the couples I mean: the ones who seem to glide across the floor so effortlessly, you can tell just by watching that they�ve been dancing together for a long time. It doesn�t matter what kind of dance it is--ballroom dancing, jitterbug, or Texas two-step--it is a thing of joy to watch a couple dance well together. Notice that they are not dancing exactly alike; instead, each partner makes the moves that complement the other�s moves. They�re not moving in unison like robots,
they are moving together.
It�s not like that when Harold and I dance. Now, don�t get me wrong, Harold is an OK dancer. But with me as his partner, he just doesn�t have much to work with. I�m poorly coordinated, I have a lousy sense of rhythm, and, well, I�m just never going to impress anybody out on the dance floor.
But it occurred to me that, you know, there is dancing and there is dancing. When a couple spends a lifetime together, giving and taking, supporting each other, that becomes a kind of a dance. When one spouse gets the trash bagged up and the other one puts it on the curb, that�s part of the dance. When one comes home having had a lousy day, and the other knows just what to say--or what NOT to say--that�s part of the dance, too. And when you get really good at this dance we call marriage, you can say something like, �Yeah, like that one time!� and both of you will giggle for 10 minutes over your private memory, making everyone around you think you�re nuts. The name of the dance is love and respect,
and the more you do it, the better you get at it.
But just because you get really good at the dance, that doesn�t mean you can skip steps. (forgive me for getting a little �preachy� here. This could be the last time I get to give my kid a lecture!) You can�t skip the I love you�s (sure, you both know you love each other. You have to say it anyway. Often). You can�t skip the anniversaries, or the hugs for no reason, or laughing at each other�s dumb jokes, or saying I�m sorry and meaning it. When you get really good at the dance, that means that it�s time to learn some new steps. Finding new and creative ways to say I love you. Getting some new jokes. Taking turns leading. Former President Gerald Ford was once asked, �Is your marriage a 50-50 proposition?� He answered, �No. It�s more like 70-30. Sometimes I�m the 70, sometimes she is.�
To put it another way, in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the mother tells her daughter, �The husband is the head of the household. The wife is the neck, who turns the head so he sees what he is supposed to see.�
