The Father of the Bride
Now if I can only remember her new last name.
I’m sure other people have experienced their daughter getting married. I haven’t. I felt like I needed an instruction book entitled “How to Feel When Your Daughter Gets Married For Dummies.” I don’t think I was over emotional. I’m able to compartmentalize things like that. Not to compare the two, but I do the same thing at funerals.
She married into an Ethiopian family. Other than my sister, my brother, my brother-in-law, and my two sisters-in-law, that was just about the extent of the white people of a two hundred plus people event. The dancing was a lot of Ethiopian. I don’t know how they move their shoulders like that, but I tried. I never felt so white in my life. But I digress.
As I walked my daughter down the aisle, I could feel a smile frozen on my face. During that short walk, holding her hand close to me, her entire life flashed before my eyes. It went really fast because there was a lot of life to cover. I glanced at her face and she looked so fucking happy. Not quite as happy as when she was five years old and it was Chanukah, but pretty damn close.
I stood on the chuppah and watched the ceremony. It was then that I knew what they mean when they talk about an “out of body experience.” It was if I was on the outside, looking in. I looked out at the crowd of family and friends and felt, being a comedian, I should do at least ten minutes. But no one was looking at me. They were all looking at my beautiful daughter marrying one lucky sonuvabitch.
