Flowers for the Bride...

Our daughter Andrea is getting married ~ next July, the 12th, at the Sweetest Heart of Mary parish downtown.
Only one more year to go...even less than that...
We went to look at wedding gowns the other day ~ her, myself, her future mother-in-law. She had tried several shoppes already, some had things she liked, others not. She finally found the perfect dress, veil and all...exactly what she had been looking for and bought it...the other two of us snapping pictures with our cell phones as she stood glowing into the mirrors...
She has a definite idea in her mind of what she wants...and that is all good; this way it is so much easier for her to find what she has harbored in her dreams, all her life (she is 23).
Her fiance, Nick, is also 23. His mother, I imagine, is having a hard time letting her firstborn son go ~ into his adulthood, away from his parents' home, where he was brought up, nourished and taught, loved and nurtured for all of his years.
But such is life...and God's Plan will not be stopped ~ not by mere mortals. So we, as mothers, sit helplessly and watch it go by...
See, I know exactly how she feels about the whole thing; our own firstborn son, Paul, was married last October to his sweetheart of many years, Kristy, at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, also downtown. They had been engaged for nearly two years, and finally had their big day; all went well, she looked amazing, he cried when he saw her...and now they live their lives together, bound by God's holy Law.
Now, back to the present, and Andrea ~ her request to me, her artist mother, to design the flower arrangements for her wedding. So I sit at my drawing table, imagining roses, lilies, baby's breath, forget-me-nots...and how lovely will be the flowers that she will present to Our Lady!
There are only two or three things she has mentioned that she really likes in brides' bouquets ~ jewels and ribbons...sparkling dewdrop jewels and trailing silken ribbons...
'Of course!' I reply. 'Not a problem ~ no, not at all!'
I am always grateful for the excuse to pick up my pencils and drawing pads...using my imagination for anything to put down. Flowers, you say? Great! Ribbons? Of course! Jewels? Sounds like a plan!
There is, however, one thing that she doesn't realize...I am an artist, to be sure...but I am also her mother. I have watched her grow up to become a lovely young lady, full of promise and talent, smart and funny, kind and loving...all the things that I see in every one of our children.
And if she thinks for even one moment, that this project of hers, this designing of her wedding flowers, is going to be easy for me, well, I'm afraid that she is dead wrong.
Oh, sure...the actual drawings are going to easy as pie! I have no problem with that.
But they will represent to me the wedding of my fourth daughter, my fifth-born child. She will be grown, leaving home. The flowers will be preserved, she says, to be displayed forever in her new home.
However, as I watch her exchange vows with her beloved Nick, I will be thinking that my baby girl is now a grown woman, leaving to begin her new life as a married woman, bound to her husband by God's holy Law...and away from me and her father forever.
Yes, her flowers may be 'on display' for all to see ~ and indeed, everyone will 'ooh' and 'ahh' over them, I imagine. But they will never know the love and tears that went into their design.
Only I, as her artist mother, will remember all that...and I will keep that on display in my heart for the rest of my life.