A HEAD-ON COLLISION

WEDDING SPEECH

WEDDING SPEECH

Speech delivered at the wedding of our son Sani Z. Yamout to Stephanie L. Andrus
Whiteface Lodge, Lake Placid  NY, USA
January 7, 2012

I'm so happy, so charged with emotions, I do not know how I 'll be able to go the through this.

Bushra..... Could you please come and stand by my side for support, the way you have done for the forty two years we are now married. Please bring along your glass for the toasts.

Diana Mother of the Bride

I am so happy at last to have met you Stephanie, met your family...  The Andruses, the Firliks, the Mullens, and also your families' close friends. We have always followed you all by proxy, on Facebook, in messages and on the phone.  Now it’s the real thing. You stand out as such a tightly knit circle of lifetime loyalties.  

That's a rare thing to see these days. We know and value what it means to belong to that circle. We're very happy to see our son Sani is already a part of it. So here's to you all, but first and foremost to you Diane, mother of the bride, the vibrant hub of that circle, the person puling it in all together.

"Son, when the time comes ....... "

When I was a young man, my father gave me the advice of my lifetime. He said ........ "Son..., when the time comes for you to marry, find yourself an intelligent girl. For an intelligent wife will make life much easier for you." 

Well,,,, when the 

The blessing of my life

time came,........ Bushra showed up on our doorstep.... coming to visit my sister for the first time. It was no coincidence. The thing had been pre-arranged. . She was God-sent.  The blessing of my life...... Home delivered.

Here's to you and to those wonderful years we've been together now.

And now with this wedding, we are happy to see that all three of our sons have done by my father's advice.

So here's to you Nicole, to you Dionne, and to you Stephanie.  

When I attend wedding celebrations, I am always reminded of our own wedding, actually, of a small ceremony that precedes the wedding celebration. It's that of signing the marriage contract. We refer to it as the Kitab ceremony. Those among us of the Jewish denomination are familiar with this ceremony. It is one of the many traditions we share. Even the Hebrew word for it (ketubah) sounds something similar to the Arabic word Kitab.

"We are gathered here ..........."

Anyways, the sheikh who presided over the ceremony, opened by saying "We are gathered here to witness the start of a new family bla bla bla ......"

I say bla bla bla bla for upon hearing this...., Wah..........., I felt myself suddenly face to face with the reality of the responsibility for that forthcoming family. It sent my head into a spin and for a few moments I was oblivious of whatever he said after.

In the thick of these ceremonies and celebrations ..........

For it was there and then, in the thick of these ceremonies and celebrations, that the burden of that forthcoming family started to bear ....heavily..... on my shoulders. ........That burden turned out to be the blessing and joy of our life. 

And the family did not take long to start showing up.

Strolling with Salah  on the Cornich of Beirut

So much so that by the time Salah, our first born was two months old, we took him for a stroll and were encountered by a nosy couple who are relatives from Damascus, and people of Damascus can be very nosy. They peeked into the stroller and the usual questions.........

"Oh what a nice baby, a boy or a girl?....... What name?........... How old?"

Upon hearing he was a two months old boy, there was a frown and a moment of silence ......... followed by this exchange;

"when was he born?"

"He was born last November twenty four."

"You know we have been to your wedding, we forgot the date, when was that?" A very innocent question as you can see.

"It was the twenty first of last February."

Again a moment of silence with fingers twitching and lips murmuring in count followed by a big burst. 

"Ohh what a nice boy, look at that beautiful face, the curly hair, can we hold him.........." 

Salah was followed by Sani, Sawsan & Karim...... No more premonitions about our children being nice children.

The One Million Dollar Man

And by the time Sani grew up to be two and a half years old, we had to send him to school. Actually it was not a school....... not even a kindergarten. It was what was referred to as a playgroup. A place where children spent their time either napping or dancing around the teacher in a circle  

"Round and round and round we go, tra lala lala  lala." 

Every morning Sani would leave the house weeping his eyes out. He didn't want to leave mom, and would come back home with red eyes, puffed checks and a face full of tears like he's been weeping all the way through. For him it was an ordeal.

This went on for some time until one day Sani came home with eyes gleaming, a face beaming with a big smile..........  and with all the lisps of a two and a half year old, had a big announcement to make. He said

 "Ma...... Today I saw the teacher's butt."

Yes ladies and gentlemen, that's what the two and a half years old scholar reported to his mother on that day when he came back from that institution of basic learning .  

I can't use the synonym English word for the Arabic word he used. ......... Not appropriate for the occasion........... Yet it showed that ..... the scope of vocabulary of this two and a half years old ......went way beyond tra  lala lala lala............  Likewise a quest for academic achievement......  that looked up to levels..... above those of a preset curriculum.

One can't help but relate to Galileo Galilee when, on a dark starry night of the early seventeenth century, and with the help of his newly invented telescope,  he spotted and reported the sighting of the first of the four moons of Jupiter.

Newt

Except that you have to give more credence to the methodology of the former's observation, for it was conducted in proximity to the object being observed, in pure daylight and with the naked eye thus formulating a good idea of the shape and size of the object being observed, with no leeway for optical distortions.

Veritably, and unbeknown to us until then, we were in the presence of a prodigy. A prodigy among his peers

Looked up and were fascinated by what they saw

Nicklaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilee, Sir Isaac Newton, Sani Yamout......... All looked up at one time in their life and reported their fascination by what they saw.     

Add and Multiply

Not long ago, I drew a nice schematic diagram of our family tree starting with my grandfather down to our grandchildren, showing all uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings, spouses, with a portrait posted for each individual. This I sent to our children with a message of two main words..........

"Add and Multiply."

Today our family tree is being enriched by the addition of Stephanie..... a rare and precious acquisition,....to use collectors' jargon. We are now looking forward, the Good Lord willing as grandma Andrus says, Inshallah as we say it in Arabic, to the product of the multiplication.

That also goes for you Dionne and Karim. Do you hear that!!! Bushra asked that I relay this message also to you. Where are you, raise your hand. And Dionne, you raise your hand too. You should know by now it takes two to tango.  

Yes......, we are looking forward for more skiers, more sailors, more fishermen, more divers, more tennis players, more ice skaters, more soccer players........., but first and foremost, the Good Lord Willing and always the Good Lord Willing, for  more well raised,  conscientious, highly skilled professionals with both of you already as their role models. 

So let's raise our glasses to toast our beloved newlyweds Stephanie and Sani with excerpts from the Arabic lyrics of this song to the tune of Mendelssohn Bridal March.

Shine on us in your all white o you April flower

Shine on us in your all white o you April flower

Let your beauty shine on us with this radiant face of yours

Your prince is holding your hand

And all our hearts are around you

Showering you with roses and myrrh

Our hearts are praying for you on this bright evening

May the joy of this festivity continue with you for the rest of your lives.

May the Good Lord above bless you

May He be with you wherever you go

May He support you in hard days to come

And may your life together be that of good health, abundance, peace and harmony.