Welcome to the family – Cyrus McQueen & Leanne Gordon Wedding Remarks 4

Our family welcomes you, Leanne. Whenever there is marriage, it is a vote of confidence in love and in the future.

We welcome you to our family.  You and Cyrus were nurtured in the environs and soils of countries on different continents, but somehow had a flash of recognition* and saw your soulmate in the other – beyond the initial physical attraction. You give us hope.  We want you to get it right!

The differences between your tribes have and can continue to be conquered because you are members of the same human family and formed by the same God.

We hope you feel bathed in the love that is being shown at this wedding by family giving time – precious time; spending money – lots of money; traveling many miles by car, bus and plane to bear witness to your marriage, your partnership, your love.  (One might think your brother’s trip from Australia is the farthest distance traveled but at least one person has come from Mars.  I’ll leave you to figure out who that is.)

Our presence means we approve.  Your marriage creates a new family as it joins the McQueen’s and the Gordon’s.

We love you Cy and Leanne.  We root for you Leanne and Cy.  We pray for you.  We hold you in our hearts as we travel back to our various homes to which you are always welcome.  You have linked all of us in a new, expanded family representing the best of who we are as human beings.

You give us hope.  We want you to get it right!

Remember that love will find a way through the inevitable challenges, troubles and successes – small and large – that will come.  Come they will.  Commit to your love and partnership and shared values.  Know that love is actions and not just feelings.  It is dynamic. Honor the commitment, build the partnership, nurture the marriage and always remember the love.  And keep laughing.

Mom (Candelaria Silva-Collins, mother of the groom)

*(Cy and Leanne saw each other three times on crowded NY subway trains.  Imagine that!)