Let them eat cake

May 16, 2011. Like every year on May 16th, we literarily stuff ourselves into our ‘wedding attire’, that is the original suit and dress (I wear the suit, Madeleine wears the dress) and play groom and bride all over again. Although there is no scientific proof that cotton shrinks with time, I am still convinced, or like to think, that it does. Both of us seem to have more and more trouble getting into our wedding outfits as the years go by. We usually have our picture taken with Nadine and Patrick, with some kind of background that sums up our year. This year we had to improvise on the Nadine & Patrick prop. We got our picture taken surrounded with our 56 ‘other’ kids + the staff and workers at school.

It didn’t take very much convincing to get people at school to participate in our little traditional photo op. I explained to the kids at the morning assembly that we wanted our picture taken today because it was our wedding anniversary, and that every year we would take our picture surrounded by our 2 children, but that this year our kids were far far far away in the land of snow banks and Stephen Harpers, and I wondered if they would do me and Mrs. Mulaire a favor and stand in for our kids, and if by chance, at 9 o’clock, if they would give up their class time doing Math with Mrs. Camara, and Science with Mr. Pratt, and in Kindergarten they would have to wait till tomorrow to learn how to tie their shoelaces, and come to the playground and stand in for our kids. Duuuhh, not much convincing there.

The kids were excited, and got even more excited when I told them that we were having cake after the photo, because an anniversary was not an anniversary without cake. They all cheered. Madeleine had spent all of last night baking a huge cake in case the Math with Mrs. Camera and Science with Mr. Pratt bargaining chip was not enough and I had to raise the ante with cake. It wasn’t necessary, but we ended up eating the cake anyway, because an anniversary is not an anniversary without cake, and so what if my suit shrinks some more for next year’s photo.

Right on cue and on time, at 9 o’clock, the kids and the teachers left their classrooms, the maintenance guys dropped their rakes, and even the guards left their newly built and freshly painted guard house and assembled at the playground for the planned photo session. Madeleine and I quickly squeezed ourselves into our shrinking wedding attire, and exited the administration building to the rousing applause of the children and staff. It was a moment.

Everyone insisted on being in the photo, so one of the guards went outside the gates of the campus and flagged down a car, asked the driver if he had a few minutes to come and snap a picture or two (only in Africa), to which the driver quickly accepted the invitation, and there we had it...we were set to go.

A few clicks of the camera, followed by cake. Another memorable day, just like the one exactly 30 years ago when this cypress-bride and this oak-groom had decided to walk down the aisle of l’Église Précieux Sang and declare to their assembled friends and families that they had decided to live the rest of their lives together.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.