Two Weddings and a Hens’ Party

Prior to her hens’ party, my lovely niece Laura invited me for a coffee. We chatted about what my mother called ‘our family and other animals’. Laura asked if I could find for her the quote from Virginia Woolf that her grandmother, Lawre, had chosen as epigraph for her memoir. ‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘Of course I’ll find the inscription.’ Or so I half-remember saying.

My niece is a live-wire and her hens’ party went off with much hilarity. Even the standup comedian hired for the day told Laura how funny she was. This event was followed by her first wedding to a fine young man of Indian descent. It too was a raucous affair with much Bollywood dancing, great food and colourful costuming.

Next loomed her second wedding, hosted by her parents. In the lead-up to the occasion, I kept myself busy in search of a suitable outfit worthy of my age and aspirational dignity. That’s to say, without signs of having ‘given up’ entirely. (My Indian sari could perhaps have done with another wrap around the waist and a few more pins. But hey!)

On the big day, under the canopy of gum trees, I was relaxing with other guests when someone asked me to join the wedding party. This meant sitting in the front row with my brother and his wife. They thanked me profusely for agreeing to give a reading at the podium. ‘Pardon?’ I said. ‘No,’ I shook my head, ‘I know nothing about that.’

The speeches were underway when out of the blue the celebrant invited me to speak. She handed me a piece of paper scattered with random words that played like hopscotch across the page and bore no attribution to anyone or had any title. Not quite like sinking with the Titanic, but close.

I began reading to an expectant audience. The print still made no sense – until the very end, when I realised that the ‘little daily miracles’ of which I read, were the wondrous words of Virginia Woolf. I straightened up and this time, with gathering confidence, announced that I would repeat the final lines: 

What is the meaning of life? That was all – a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come … The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.

After the reading, people congratulated me. I gave up explaining that I’d been taken by surprise. Visitors from the UK were particularly effusive in their wine-fuelled praise of the work. I suspect they thought I might have written it myself.

As lovers of literature will know, the public may not share our love of great writing, but when it comes to the important occasions in life, we might all turn to certain passages or poems by significant authors.

Here on the windswept plains of Victoria, came the miraculous voice of Virginia Woolf, rounding off a swirl of events that culminated in the bonding of two fine young people, very much supported by the wisdom of Woolf and the bride’s ever-loving grandmother, after whom she was named.

* From To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf