How My Parents Fell For My Husband

by Amy Sohn

The day of the wedding, my father put on a suit and a carnation and with his slicked-back hair and gray beard, looked like a real father of the bride. We even danced together, even though he doesn’t like to dance, and we made quiet small talk while everyone watched us, although most of it was about whether the band was going to go into overtime.

Two days after the wedding, after Jack and I were back in Brooklyn, I got an email from my father. I was nervous to open it, because the subject heading was “Misc.”

It opened with a long and somewhat corny poem about the joys of marriage, with metaphors like “mountains and valleys.” I wasn’t sure if he’d written it or found it on the Internet. Underneath it, he wrote, “I’d have to say that one of the greatest ‘values’ of your wedding day was how much I learned about Jack…to his enormous credit! Maybe I wasn’t observant enough, or other things got in the way of my realizing sooner what a truly wonderful match you are for each other. Anyhow, you certainly ‘have our blessing,’ by which I mean that we think that your making a life together is a wonderful thing, and we’re glad we can learn from both of you over the coming years. Now, about this ‘baby thing’…” After that, he put the sign for a wink. It’s the only time an emoticon ever made me cry.

*Name has been changed.

Adapted from an essay by Amy Sohn that appears in Altared, published by Vintage Books in May.