Saturday, Sep. 12, 2009

To my parents...

Life in my bubble is finally starting to return to normal. The spinning feeling is beginning to cease and my job is starting to pick back up. C'est la vie, no?

Still, I have plenty of people to thank, which may bore you readers who don't really know me or have just stumbled upon my blog today. Unfortunately for you, I'm a big ball of emotion, still, and I can't seem to stop with my verbal diarrhea of "thank-yous."

I think it first started to sink in that I was married when I was saying good-bye to my grandmother. She was moving back to California right after my wedding and saying good-bye to her was almost too much. I started blubbering in front of relatives and couldn't stop. Once the floodgates were opened, it was a tsunami of emotions, both happy and sad. My family did their best not to give me quizzical looks.

My sister must have been on the same wavelength as me because she was constantly tearing up. Her big eyes were like wells that could have provided water for an impoverished village, had she not been supplied with endless amounts of tissue.

Okay, maybe I'm razzing her too much. My sister has always worn her heart on her sleeve and my wedding was no different.

Surprisingly, my mother was a stoic rock. At least in front of the scene. Who knows how she faired for the three hours I didn't see her while I got my hair and makeup done. The only traces of tears I saw were when I looked back at our professional photos. There she was, in the background, teary-eyed, leaning on my dad. Just looking at that kind of stuff makes me well up.

My mother deserves the highest praise (and not because my father told me to say so). While at first I didn't want to release the reigns of my wedding planning to her, I'm glad that she was an integral part of the process. Almost every day for the past year I would get a phone call or E-mail from her, saying she had found something fun at either the Dollar Store or online. I give her a hard time for shopping 24-7 for the wedding, but it truly added those special touches.

The biggest hit were these book of matches that had our name on them. It was something so small, but everybody raved about them and stuck them in their pockets. That, too, was another little something that my mother surprised us with that made the day a little more magical.

A runner-up for highest praise goes to my father, who put up with his house being a storage closet for the wedding. The month leading up to the wedding, he was always working on fixing some part of the house for when guests came. He also deserves kudos for being the voice of reason when it came to wedding hiccups. His motto was "You shouldn't stress out." While my mom and I ran around like headless chickens, he would always tell us it would work out... And it usually did.

Ironically, the person I saw the least leading up to my wedding was my brother. As the officiant, he had a heavy burden to bare. At first he was psyched and joked about all the silly things he would say during the ceremony. About a week leading up to the event, he was visibly nervous.

During the ceremony, he battled windy weather conditions that kept blowing his papers out of order. As a natural entertainer and funny-man, he was somehow a bit out of his element, showing a vulnerable side that none of us had ever witnessed. It was beyond touching and I will always treasure the photos that captured this moment.

Another special moment was getting to see Mr. Big's parents together. They are a fairly traditional couple who do not show too much affection towards one another. So seeing them holding hands and dancing together was a ginormous leap. For a long time I wondered if they were really happy with Big and I's union. The fact that they made an elaborate meal for friends and family for our rehearsal dinner was proof enough that they were on board. I truly appreciate their generosity and the fact that they have opened their home to not just me, but the entire "Lee" family.

As I warned earlier, I have so many more thanks to give, such as the groomsmen, bridesmaids, friends, girlfriends of friends, etc. While I think I managed to steer clear of the whole BrideZilla name tag, I know I couldn't have done it without these people behind me.

While I tried to avoid it, I'm going to have to end on a sappy note. When I left my mother's house on Sunday, she wrapped me in her arms and said "You're no longer a Lee..." While I am taking on a different moniker, I'm never leaving behind my old one. As a Korean adoptee in this vast world, there is never a day that goes by that I don't realize how lucky I am that I have the best parents in the world, a pair of loving foster parents in Korea and now two more parents who have welcomed me into their lives with open arms...

Saranghaeyo, moms and dads...