Adventure not only for newly weds

An announcement: I’m officially the proud mother of one daughter – or at least shares in one.

Yes, my oldest son got married. He and his lady were hitched without a hitch on a vivid blue afternoon in the Durbanville hills, and never have I seen two happier people.

Actually, make that five happier people, because three-quarters of the parents present were glowing, too.

The fourth parent, aka Himself, was too busy stressing about his after-dinner speech to glow. I made a speech, too. The Mother of the Groom lecture is not exactly a thing but I’ll only get to “give away” this boy of mine once, so I needed to have my say.

Naturally, I went last because my son knows I like to have the last word. So I told my daughter-in-law never to ask my son what he’s thinking – advice all women might heed – because it won’t be romantic thoughts, but instead something ridiculous like what he’d do if they were both attacked by ninjas.

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I told my son that when his wife comes to him with a problem, he doesn’t have to offer solutions. He simply needs to listen, because that’s what we women want: to be heard.

I told these beloved newly weds that they both now have someone who has their back, someone to care for, someone to care for them in turn, someone to keep trying for, knowing that they’ll be doing the same.

“Treasure each other,” I said. “If you both put each other first, you’ll be winning.”

However, there are things I never said, so perhaps I’ll just leave them here:

• Sometimes it’ll get really hard.
• However committed in love, you will still find other people attractive. So will your partner. You cannot police their thoughts, so trust that they value the promises they made to you.
• You won’t always be awash with love. Bright shiny things do tarnish. Sometimes you’ll fall out of love, sometimes you’ll dream of leaving, but hold fast, because this is your chosen person and love means trying, even – especially – when you don’t want to. And it’s worth the effort. It took me 20 years to learn that the adventures don’t stop because you “settle down”; instead you gain a road-trip buddy for the rest of this wild and fabulous life.

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