Déjà Vu All Over Again

Sunday evening, I officiated Heather and Aaron’s wedding ceremony at The Springs Event Venue - the Ranch, in Aubrey, Texas. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

Heather and Aaron chose to have this quote from Rumi read today; they feel it speaks to their relationship. “The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind I was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere; they're in each other all along.” I’m not sure how you say déjà vu in 13th Century Persian, but it sounds like Rumi is saying just that.

I find that very appropriate. Yogi Berra might even say about what we are doing here today that it is déjà vu all over again. That is because the last time Heather, Aaron, their parents, and his sister got together, it was back in May, for an even more intimate wedding ceremony at Frisco Commons Park.

I want to go back a little further, though. I ask every person I marry to write an essay about themselves and their partners. Heather and Aaron wrote their essays on the same day we had our second wedding ceremony planning meeting, March 13th. In a sense, these essays could be treated as time capsules of a world long gone.

Now, I ask every couple not to read each other’s essays before our meeting. Heather and Aaron abided by this, which makes the following fact really interesting. In these time capsules, they both independently highlighted the same fact about each other. They said that one of the reasons they so loved each other is that they found the other to be selfless.

Little did they know how important that word, that idea, that concept would become in the new world we live in. They could hardly have imagined that folks across the world, in the profession Heather works in and Aaron spent many years in, would be called on to meet the moment with selflessness. And none of us could have imagined that each of us in our daily lives would be asked to continue to this very day to act selflessly. 

I joke with couples I have married or have begun to work with since March, that I don’t envy their future children. They will not be able to complain about anything. “Oh, you’re having a hard time with cleaning your room/mowing the lawn/doing your homework, are you? Try living through a global pandemic. Now that was hard!”

In all seriousness, though, I believe that Heather and Aaron’s children, specifically, have the potential to be a little kinder, a little more patient, a little more understanding. I believe this not only because of the hardship their parents will have experienced, but because they had a head start on that idea, we have all learned the importance of, selflessness.