She was a flower girl for the second time in her life this past weekend. We’d told her that she’d walk down the aisle and get to either stand on the girl side or the boy side (where Papa was also standing). We’d told her she’d walk right before the bride and everybody would be waiting for her at the front. We were wrong.
The music started and pretty soon the wedding coordinator called for the flower girl to begin walking. WHAT??? Nobody else had gone yet! I quickly told her that this was going to be a time for her to be brave and courageous and to walk down the aisle…..and wait up in the front for everybody else all alone. I doubted her and ran through the things I’d say to her in my head to make sure she knew it was okay that she didn’t want to walk up to the front and stand by herself.
I didn’t think she’d do it. We hadn’t prepared for it, talked about it….but…..she rocked it like a boss. Later, she informed me that she smiled the whole way down, ‘filling people’s buckets,’ which made me feel so proud.
It was a reminder to me that we can prepare our children for what we think might happen, or even what we hope will happen, and things aren’t always going to go that way. Our children are going to react in a moment and the tools that they use to come to a decision are the tools that we help put in their ‘toolbox.’ We’ve been talking a lot about being brave (mostly because she doesn’t like to go down slides) and I’m thankful for those conversations because I think they made a difference in her confidence. She soaks in what we tell her and pulls it out when she needs it….like a sponge.
The next morning I woke up to her whispering in my ear:
Her: “Mama, when you got married did you carry flowers down the aisle?”
Me [still sleeping]: mmm, yes.
Her: Did you have a pin in your flowers? To hold them together?
Me [now fake sleeping]: yeah
Her: Did you have berries in your flowers, Mama?
Me: no.
Then she left the room. I later heard her telling somebody that she walked down the aisle and had flowers ‘just like Mama did’.
**More to come from this spectacular wedding.
