Wedding Crises and Magic

So other night we had the requisite wedding crisis which had to do with the color of bridesmaid dresses and involved sobs and despair. Thanks to the magic of Amazon (cheap dresses + 2-day shipping) and the flexibility and patience and love of all concerned,  all is well this morning, but the whole thing caused me to remember my own wedding crisis, over 40 years ago.

It was the night before our wedding when I looked in the mirror and realized why my eye had been bothering me all day. It was swollen and red; I had a sty—“a red, painful lump near the edge of your eyelid that may look like a boil or a pimple.” (Mayo Clinic). I dissolved into tears. Here I was on the eve of the day when I should look my most beautiful, and I had a huge red bump overwhelming my eye. I cried in despair.

My father looked in the door of my bedroom and said, “Doesn’t matter one bit. And if Paul thinks it does then you are better off without him.” (Dad had his doubts about my choice.)

I cried harder.

My mother sensibly suggested a warm washcloth to bring down the swelling.

I was still crying, with that washcloth over my eye, when my grandmother shuffled into the room. Grandma was 84 at that point, and her feet and joints caused her constant pain. She had insisted on coming to the wedding though.

Grandma had been widowed at the age of 23 and had raised her two daughters as a single mom when such a thing was hardly known of. She worked as a bookkeeper and made sure they always had a best dress and had piano lessons and went to college. She supported not only her daughters but her own widowed mother.

She came over to my bed and sat down. “Let me see your eye, dear.”

I showed her, sniffling.

“Well now. I know just what to do.” She was taking her wedding band off her finger, maneuvering it past the swollen knuckles. She had faithfully worn that band since she had been married 64 years before.

“For a sty, you just rub it with gold.” Grandma was a faithful Mormon, a modern woman before her time who worked ias a bookkeeper n a man’s world.

She was also pretty superstitious. When my sister, as a little girl, years before, had had warts, Grandma sent her to a friend who could charm them away. The woman told Kay that she must never tell what was done, or they would come back. So I have no idea what she did. But the warts went away.

So now she had a remedy for the sty. “Here, take my wedding ring, and just stroke it over the bump. It will be gone by morning.” She said gently in her cracked and tired voice.

I looked up out of my despair into Grandma’s kind eyes. She loved me. She was sad I was so unhappy. She wanted to help me. She believed this would help.

She held my face in her hands and gently stroked the cool metal across the inflamed lump.

I stopped crying.

Somehow I stopped worrying. I went to sleep. 

And in the morning, the sty was gone.