“Are you nervous?” Mandy’s question after the family’s morning prayers were over made Ellie laugh.
“Why should I be nervous? This is my second wedding day.”
“Ellie won’t have to be worried about anything,” Mam said as she finished washing the dishes. “Everything is ready, thanks to all the willing helpers we’ve had.”
Mam dried her hands and started the day’s work with her usual brisk enthusiasm.
“Rebecca, remember, you and your friends are in charge of the little ones today. And, Mandy, will you please keep an eye out to give them a hand if they need it?”
“Ja, Mam, you can count on it.”
Mam smiled at both girls. “I know I can. Now, let’s bring up the jars of chow-chow from the cellar and start the chicken frying....”
Mam shooed the girls down the cellar steps in front of her, but turned to Ellie before following them.
“I have prayed for this day, daughter. Gott’s blessings will go with you.”
“I know, Memmi. He is blessing our family already.”
Ellie was alone in the kitchen—alone for the last time before her sisters and aunts started arriving to help with the wedding dinner. She looked around the spacious room. More than anywhere else in the world, this kitchen meant home and family. She had missed the significance of the kitchen before her first wedding. Perhaps she had taken it for granted, but she never would again. It was the center of the home.
She smoothed her hand along the grain of the old table and then rested it on the back of Dat’s chair. Dat had made this chair a place of humility, mercy and grace. She had learned about Gott as she listened to Dat read from the Bible as he sat here, and as he read their morning and evening prayers while they each knelt at their chairs.
Her whole life had been bracketed by Dat’s prayers at the beginning and end of every day. Even when she and Daniel had been married, he had included their names in his prayers just as he included Zac, Lovina, Sally and their families as they married one by one. Tomorrow he would start including Bram and their family in those same prayers.
Bram had taken her with him last night as they moved her things into their new house. The new table in the kitchen was as big as this one. His grin when she had protested that the table was much too large for the five of them still made her smile. They both hoped it wouldn’t be too large for long.
Tears of thanksgiving came to Ellie’s eyes as she thought of Bram’s chair at the head of that long table. He had built a shelf on the wall behind his chair and placed his Bible there, along with the copy of Die Ernsthafte Christenpflicht, the prayer book Dat had given him and the copy of the Ausbund hymnal that had been her gift to him. Bram was going to be a wonderful husband and father, leading his family as well as her Dat ever had.
Even as early as it was, the community would soon start arriving. First the women who would help prepare the huge amounts of food they would need to feed dinner and supper to two hundred people, and then the other families.
Then at nine o’clock the service would begin. She and Bram would miss the singing, as they would spend that time with Bishop Yoder, receiving the final counsel before taking their vows. Then the sermons would begin, the sermons that would lead the entire church in reflecting on the meaning of marriage and the solemnity and permanence of the vows she and Bram would soon take.
Ellie peeked in the doorway of the front room. All the walls had been pushed back to make room for the benches for the service, as if it were a Sunday meeting. She leaned her head on the door frame, her mind filling the benches with her family and loved ones of the community.
After the sermons, she and Bram would stand before the church with their witnesses—Matthew, Annie, Lovina and Noah—and then they would say their simple vows, promising to love and bear and be patient with each other until death.
Could she love Bram?
Ach, ja. She already loved him with all her heart.
Could she be patient with him?
Ja. Her love would provide the patience she would need.
Could she bear him? Bear his bad moods as well as his good? Bear his sorrows as well as his joys? Bear his failures as well as his successes?
Ja. She could bear anything at Bram’s side.
The back door opened with a sharp squeak of the hinges, and Ellie turned to see Bram filling the doorway. His face broke into a grin when he saw her. “I hoped I’d find you here.”
“Couldn’t you wait until the wedding?”
“Ne, not today. I wanted to be alone with you for just a minute, before everyone else gets here. You know we won’t have a chance until late tonight.”
“A chance for what?”
Bram’s crooked grin twitched, and he crossed the room to her. “A chance for one more kiss before you become my wife.”
Ellie rose on tiptoe to peck him on the cheek. “There you go.”
Bram growled as he pulled her into his arms. “You know I want more of a kiss than that.”
And then he kissed her with a passion she had never felt before.
Ach, ja. She could bear even this.
* * * * *