The Stomach Knows Best

My family and friends have playfully enjoyed making sport of me since reading my recent interview with a local weekly paper in which I mentioned my general preference for officiating at funerals over weddings. "Dr. Death," my son now calls me. Never mind that what I really appreciated was how much more authentic and present people tend to be in the remembrance of loved ones who have died -- the stories, the appreciations, the laughter, the tears -- in contrast to the melodrama and superficiality that so often swirl around weddings. At funerals it is all about the people -- or at least about the person. At weddings, more often than not, it's all about the pictures and the party afterwards. "We don't care about the vows; what we really want to know is how close the videographer can stand?"

I know weddings are not all like this. I have officiated at several that raised a lump in my throat -- whose tenderness and sincerity, made palpable by the widened eyes and the hushed and careful responses, made emotions rise and tears fall and confirmed the fact that what was being solemnized among us was infinitely larger than all of us combined.

It just doesn't happen very often. And today's newspaper brought me some smug validation. Unfortunately -- tragically and even unforgivably, it seems -- a wedding reception a couple of years ago had some problems. Guests got sick. Tainted salad was blamed. The couple sued the restaurant, and now the verdict is in: $50,000 the restaurant will be required to pay the unhappy, devastated couple. They had asked for more than 8-times that amount, and registered their dismay that the jury didn't compensate them for "future emotional distress."

Please. Future emotional distress? Are you really going to spend the rest of your life sucking on this sore thumb? I can't be too optimistic about a marriage inalterably bent and scarred by viral radishes and radicchio. Get over the reception and get on with your marriage.

Besides, while tainted salad may have played some part, my sense is that stomach cramps are fairly common place at weddings, even when nothing has been consumed. Those aren't, after all, just words that are spoken; they are breathtaking promises exchanged that will fundamentally alter the course and character and alignment of lives. Even if the couple and those closest to them aren't particularly mindful of the epochal implications, stomachs usually are, having enough sense to tie themselves up in knots.

Just to be smug about it I could add that I've never heard of this sort of thing happening at a funeral -- heartache, to be sure, but no stomach ache -- but I'll restrain myself. After all, I would hate for the church ladies who prepare those funeral luncheons to get sued. They are haggard enough as it is.