introducing mr hays-strom

Sigh… I let far too much time pass since my last post.  No excuses, really.  I started several in that time, mostly journaling assignments from my CLM class… problem was that they led into aspects of life that I’m not comfortable sharing with a larger community.  So they never got posted!

During this same period, Scott and I’ve been planning and preparing for a wedding.  Those of you who’ve read for years… in fact, since most of my readers are also close friends or family and are therefore intimately knowledgeable of my life… know that this was actually number 3!  But this one was special in ways that the previous 2 were not.

First of all, our Holy Union in 1997 which is what Scott and I consider to be our marriage before God, if not in the eyes of society/government, was only attended by our friends from church.  And many of those friends are gone now, either have left our church for another and are hence out of our life or have passed to their eternal home.  Very little of our family knew about me, though those who did and were able were present.

Our marriage in 2007 in Canada was wonderful for us.  For the first time we felt as though the greater society was part of our actions… but there were no long term friends or family in attendance.  It was a civil/religious ceremony that we felt was essential.  There IS something special bestowed on a relationship that words cannot convey when not only church but state as well recognizes a couple’s relationship.  It’s impalpable, inexplicable, but it’s there.  And there we would have been content to leave it.

Now, here we are in 2009.  Iowa legalizes same-sex marriages.  We’re absolutely blown away.  Others anticipated this.  I was caught totally by surprise!  Previous posts, however, tell why we made the decision to get married this past weekend.  Go read them!

I am now Mr. Eric Hays-Strom!

Saturday night was, well, spectacular!  Saturday dawned rainy and overcast.  Scott and I had several errands to run and so we started off relatively early to get them done.  We got wet… well, damp really… a couple of times.  We began to be a bit concerned about what the evening would be like.  Our chosen site, Castle Unicorn in/near Pacific Junction, Iowa (which in turn is near Glenwood, IA) is an outdoor venue.  There was shelter, but it’s far enough from the spot we chose for the ceremony itself, that had the skies opened on us during the ceremony, we’d have been quite wet by the time we got to shelter.

We needn’t have worried.  As we drove down to Castle Unicorn, the grey skies lifted and we were left with a stunningly beautiful blue sky with white and dark grey clouds scudding (I like that word) along.  The green of the trees and grass, with the red brick of the castle itself, and then the Missouri River Valley stretching out below to the west and south was just amazing, forming a “fairy tale-esque” backdrop to the ceremony itself.

We are so blessed, Scott and I, to have royalty amongst our friends.  Or, should I say royaldy?  Royal D. Bush, that is (fortunately no relationship to those other Bushes).  Anyhow, Royal D and his wonderful husband Jonathan asked us early in the planning stages to please call on them for anything we might need.  Well, two weeks before our wedding, we attended two other friends big Bash!  They were each celebrating their birthday AND their anniversary… and Royal and Jon put on the reception for that party.  They did such a wonderful job of it, that Scott and I approached them about doing OUR reception.  Oh.My.Gosh.  Our reception was incredible!  I’ll try to get pictures of it as soon as possible!

Another friend, Linda, baked us a beautiful cake!  I could have eaten the whole thing myself!

And other friends, Ray Page and our ‘sister’ Karla, took our cameras and became our photographers.  We’re still sorting through the photos, so you’ll have to check back later for those.

And of course, our friend, and our Pastor, Tom Emmett performed the ceremony, and took care of all those little and big details.  And he certainly made this moment in time the best experience we’ve had.

But what wedding is without it’s moments… those “little” things that go wrong?  The groom tripping over a step, or someone stepping on the bridal veil causing the poor bride’s dress to rip?  No, the groom didn’t trip, and no, the bride didn’t wear a dress or have one torn…. then again, there wasn’t a bride, per se!  No, our little embarrassing moment came well in to the ceremony as we approached the vows.  My tuxedo pants… which fit SO well at the fitting on Thursday night… now were too loose.  WAY too loose.  I felt them sliding down my hips.  I finally had to do a MAJOR adjustment as they were just seconds from dropping to my ankles!  While that would have been just utterly horrible, it was embarrassing enough.  My white tuxedo coat provided, I’m sure, a fantastic contrast to the color of my face at that moment, matching in intensity the burgundy of the vest and tie, as I grabbed by pants and hitched them to where they belonged.

Warning to those preparing for a wedding… AFTER getting fitted for your tux is NOT a good time to take up jogging!  Nor is eating a large meal BEFORE the final fitting.  These things cause “wardrobe malfunctions” in the most embarrassing of ways!  Now, I’ve not lost tremendous amounts of weight.  I’ve not dropped a size or more in the waist in the past 2 weeks.  But, the jogging has, in very short order, tightened up the tummy a little.  Now add to this a filling dinner, but spicy, well, this bloated me up a bit.  Then, Saturday Scott and I were so busy that we really didn’t eat much at all!  So my tum-tum didn’t bloat to an appropriate level to keep the pants up!

In attendance at our event were some of our oldest and newest friends from MCC Omaha.  There were three present who were at our Holy Union in 1997.  It really made Scott’s and my day just to see all these MCC’ers show up.

But on top of them, my Uncle Lyle, Missy & Jim, David & Sylvia, and Dan (Cassie’s husband) were all present.  My mom’s cousin Ron & Diane were all there (and thank goodness for that, as they told me an absolutely terrifying story that occurred just 2 weeks prior to their departure… a story about how Ron and their dog Riley were walking and were hit by a car, throwing Ron over the hood of the car, and sending both Ron & Riley to the hospital… and neither were seriously injured!  Praise God for keeping these two in God’s palm that day!)

And probably the most important dignitary in attendance Saturday was my father.  Even now, just thinking about Dad’s presence there makes me feel teary-eyed.

Life, I’ve always imagined, is like a series of circles, or spirals perhaps.  The year seems to flow for me as a circle.  Events seem to occur as a big circle, coming back on themselves to complete something that might have started ages ago. Dad’s presence at our wedding was the “coming full circle” of one of those cycles.  In March 1996 I “came out” to Mom & Dad.  I won’t go into what a horrid experience that was for all three of us.  I’ll just relate their statement “Your boyfriends or lovers or whatever will never be welcome in our home.”  After Mom & Dad moved back to Iowa in 2003, that claim seemed to be a distant memory to them.  Or perhaps they just were not able to get connected to the fact that Scott was my “boyfriend, lover or whatever”.  But there was no doubt that Dad knows precisely the nature of Scott and my relationship now.  And so, for Dad to actually instigate our wedding plans and to be in attendance was definitely the close of that circle of events for me.

I do wish Mom could have been there Saturday as well.  And in truth I believe she was.  Her spirit was certainly with me that night, and I could feel her pride in what we were doing.  As I know God was present, and Sophia, God’s Holy Spirit, too was present, blowing in the gentle breezes that night… my friend the breeze was there as well.

I told everyone present how important it was to me for Dad to be present.  That was my speech… that Dad has always been the living example of love for me, the epitome of marital love, and that through Dad’s example of love, I mirrored my own relationship with Scott.  And it made Dad cry.  Why do we late until it’s too late, or perhaps almost too late, to tell those we love the importance they’ve had in our lives?  That they are roll models and examples of all that is good and holy in life?

For love is holy.  It is without doubt the most powerful force in the universe.  It is God, and where there is love, God is always there.  Scott and I know this in our lives and in our relationship.  The power of love casts out all fear and the power of love makes our lives and our relationship just so right.