Five Weddings

I. The First
Although Etch-a-Sketch is not the friend I have been closes with the longest, she is the friend I met first. We went to preschool together and reunited in high school. She is also the first of my friends to get married.

I was terribly excited for Etch-Sketch's wedding. We went wedding dress shopping. I gave suggestions for decorations and helped glue the centerpieces together. The day of the wedding, I spent the morning at the reception venue, helping to get things ready. Then it was off to the temple to see Etch-a-Sketch and her new husband emerge, beaming. I beamed back at them. Then it was another mad dash--this time to prepare and serve the luncheon. I friend corn chips to put on the Cafe Rio-style salads like I had been born into the world for that purpose. After the luncheon, a short break. Then we set up for the reception. I made and served miniature cheesecakes and ran to the store for more chocolate syrup. I didn't leave until after Etch-a-Sketch and Mr. Etch-a-Sketch had driven off to start their life together as husband and wife.

II. How Are You?
I met Shutterbug in high school band class, and I thought I knew her from somewhere. Her name and her face and her amazing red hair all seemed familiar to me.

We would talk occasionally. Then we became band trip roommates, and soon were friends.

When I saw Shutterbug at lunch and between classes, she would often say, "How are you?"

One day, I retorted by pointing out that we not only saw each other almost every day, we often saw each other multiple times a day, and "How are you?" is something people should only say to each other when they don't see each other often and sincerely don't know how the other is doing, and so therefore could we please greet each other in some other manner?

From then on, we made a point of never saying, "How are you?" to each other. If one of us slipped, they received a severe chastisement.

Then one year, Shutterbug went on a date on my birthday. Things became Facebook official while I was in Italy, and they married the day before Thanksgiving. Shutterbug and her husband made their home in a city not too far from Hometown, but not too close either.

Now, when Shutterbug and I see each other, we say, "How are you?"

III. Saying Yes
One day, the bishop called me into his office and told me that we were getting a new Relief Society president, and that she felt prompted to ask me to be her first counselor. Would I accept this calling?

"Yes," I said. Yes to the calling, yes to serving Heavenly Father, and yes to loving and helping and being the right-hand woman of this new president, whomever she was.

I went to the temple that week. A girl that I'd known in junior high and who had recently joined our ward was there.

She came and sat by me. I let her. I'd always thought she was nice and, besides, I knew that being in the Relief Society presidency would require being extra friendly and conscientious of the women in my ward.

We did baptisms for the dead. Afterward, the girl from junior high school cornered me and began to spill out her soul.

"I've just been having such a hard time," she said breathlessly, then launched into a long explanation.

I listened politely, but I was a little taken aback. I didn't remember her being so...randomly-share-personal-stuff with-almost-strangers-ish.

"-and then this calling-" she continued.

"Oh." Comprehension had dawned. "You must be the new Relief Society president!"

We returned to that temple often, Madam President and I. And we visited and served and talked and laughed and loved together. We visited and talked and laughed and loved a year away. And at the end of that year, I went to that temple once again to witness Madam President be married and sealed for time and eternity, for she had said yes to a calling even more demanding and rewarding than Relief Society president.

IV. Meant to Be
It appears that Heavenly Father very much wanted La Petite and I to be friends, on account of He gave us so many opportunities to do it.

First, we attended the same junior high, although we never did meet.

Then we ended up in the same ward, although we never did talk.

Then I applied to work at the fast food restaurant where, unbeknownst to me, La Petite was employed. We talked occasionally, and after a year starting becoming truly friendly and then friends.

Then we both served with Madam President. La Petite was the Relief Society secretary, the person who kept us organized. The three of us served endless hours together, as a presidency, as sisters in Zion, as friends.

When La Petite begged told me that she would force me if I didn't asked me to move in with her and the Seamstress, I accepted, because after spending so much time with her in so many different capacities, I knew we were definitely compatible as roommates.

I moved in. Three weeks later, she was engaged. She wanted to stay with us and get married, but as those things aren't compatible, she married and moved out.

At the reception, someone said to me, "Oh, so you're her roommate?"

This was strange to me, that when La Petite and I were students together, in the same ward, coworkers, friends, and also in the Relief Society presidency together, I should be addressed by the title of "roommate," when that title had been acquired but lately and been fleeting indeed.

V. The Last
My BFF Viola and I met at a pivotal time of life. We quickly became best friends, meaning, of course, that I would clearly someday attend her wedding.

After many years of friendship, the day that was once only hypothetical became a reality. Viola's wedding day came upon us.

Nobody formally "gave" Viola "away" at the wedding. But informally, a wedding is always a giving away. Especially for dear friends who give the care and keeping of somebody they love away to someone that they hope loves her as much as or more than they do. They give her away to a new life, knowing their place will be different in it. That's as it should be; that's as marriage should be. But even when it should be, different is still different.

I cried at the ceremony. I smiled at the reception. I just didn't know what to do with myself. So I took up a pen and gave myself over to that ambitious human pastime: trying to explain exactly what you are feeling.