Unbroken circle

The pastor, my new daughter-in-law's father, said I should start the whole show. He said I should step up to the front of the church with the groom and his groomsmen, then watch him--her father--walk his daughter down the aisle and put his daughter's hand into my son's. Then, he said, I could say my piece.

Okay. That's fine.

So the whole show is just starting, and I'm out front with the groom when he feels through his empty pockets--the rest of the bridal party is already coming down the aisle--then sends the Best Man back into the dressing room for the mike he'd forgotten to take along.

Best man goes out, comes back, slips him the mike.

Then--the ladies already coming up the aisle--the best man (my son-in-law) has this horrifically befrazzled look on his face, and somehow I realize that the problem is the ring--or lack of it. Not just any ring either, but the ring. As in hers. I swear he never said a word, but somehow that panic told me the ring was AWL. It was gone. It was supposed to be in the hands of one of the munchkin ring bearers, but someone--it will forever remain a mystery--somehow misplaced it at the most inopportune time, the gorgeous bride now coming demurely down the aisle.

Just so happens I've got an extra on my pinkie. My father's own wedding band has been there since ten minutes after the funeral director closed the casket and handed me an odd little zipped bag containing his watch and rings. I reached in, pulled out the gold wedding band, put it on my pinkie, and haven't taken it off since.

Until Saturday night, when I pulled it off and handed it to my son-in-law.

So, when the ceremony was breezing along and the bride's father, doing his preacherly thing, enjoined my son to slip Kristina's wedding band onto her finger, symbol of unending love and all of that sweetness, my son whispered to her, "Don't freak out" when he pulled my father's skinny old gold ring from his pocket. What he said wasn't audible, but you didn't have to have a degree in lip-reading to pick up the drama.

It was simply one of those moments that will be, to them at least, unforgettable--how they got married with a ring that wasn't really hers.

Me? I'll never forget the other side, the one I'm not sure they even know today. That ring was my father's.

I believe in an after-life. I believe in the soul. I believe in life after death.

I really don't know what that life is like, so I'm not sure where that spirit that is my father lingers or hovers or sleeps or sings. I don't know what he's up to, but I'd like to think that if our after-life allows for a certain quota of spectator-ship, he was smiling Saturday night, thrilled to be part of his grandson's wedding joy--and ours.

And even if he wasn't, even if he was off playing a harp somewhere or singing in some eternal choir, I'm sure he'd be pleased by the way he played a role with that thin gold band that's back on my finger this morning. Somehow, I was happy he was there.

Native America isn't wrong. It's something akin to what the bride's dad, the preacher, told our kids about the rings: there's something sacred, something really divine about a circle.