In the end, I decided to go hard on all the letters—to fill them with earnest love, as sincere and honest as I could muster. I leaned into my sappiness. You’ve lived up to the nickname I have for you: Uncle Mark, I wrote. Thank you for always tolerating me and my neuroticism, always worrying about me, always thinking about how to protect me, and showing me love and kindness in a way I barely deserve. I’m so lucky to have an Uncle like you.
We give everyone a couple of minutes to read, at which point I have the brief opportunity to gaze into this sea of people. Their heads are bowed, they are smiling, laughing, crying. Okay, not just crying—ugly crying. Dustin is re-wadding a sopping-wet tissue. Barely able to sit upright, he leans on his husband’s shoulder. My cousin gives him a new tissue, then pulls out another for herself and blows her nose. Tai Koo Ma, next to them, looks more peacefully satisfied than I’ve seen her in a long while. Mansoor and Mark are smiling; Noah gives me the biggest, dumbest, toothiest grin; Jen is sniffling; Kathy turns her wet face up to look at me, and we exchange a shy, tearful moment. As I look out onto my community, all in one place for the first time in my life, I think, Man. These are good goddamn people. Each one represents countless acts of love and kindness, late-night calls and baked goods, cold beers and warm hugs. Behind all of these smiles is a lifetime of joy. The void is, for once, full. It is overflowing.
I am glad I wrote them letters. I want to write them more letters. I want to keep telling them how much I love them a thousand million ways, constantly, every day. I want to send them a billion more texts. I want to grab their hands and squeeze them. I want to look and look at them until we are old and wrinkled and my cataracts keep me from seeing their beautiful faces.
The PTSD had always told me I am alone. That I am unlovable. That I am toxic. But now, it is clear to me: That was a lie. My PTSD clouded my vision of what was actually happening.
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What is actually happening now: These people are not thinking about me being overly meticulous about fork placement. Dustin is not thinking about how he got burned with the hot glue gun while making the centerpieces. Kathy is not thinking about the time I called her a bitch when we were fifteen. There is no guilt or shame in this space. There is only the purest expression of love. My friends, many of whom do not know one another, are crying in public because they love me and because they feel loved by me. It is nothing short of a miracle. What is happening is an exchange of grace.
I am crying up in front of a crowd wearing too-heavy fake eyelashes. I should not have eaten pizza earlier because I am gassy and my belly is bulging unflatteringly in my dress. I’m having my picture taken a thousand times. I am laying out my most vulnerable self in front of friends and some strangers. I have never felt more cherished. I have never felt safer. I have never felt truer or more confident in the validity of what is really happening.
Then it is time for our vows. Before Joey even says anything, the extraordinarily tender way he looks at me already sends me into a tearful tizzy. “This is home,” he says, looking around at New York City. “And it is good to be home!” Everyone laughs as he hams it up, winning the crowd over with his charming delivery. His vows are so well-crafted and eloquent, organized around the idea of the home we will build and repair together. He is realistic but optimistic. Full of excitement for a difficult but blessed future. “No one has ever seen me so thoroughly and loved me so well as you have,” he says at the end. “I will be loyal to you. I’ll be true to you and I’ll be true with you because to be known by you touches me wholly. I’ll ensure that you know you are the most important person in my life, that you are loved. I will make these words forgettable because I will live them for you every day.” He pauses, shrugs. “Probably not every day. Most days. Many days, I will live them.” We all laugh through our tears.
In my vows, I tell Joey that because of the way I was brought up, I couldn’t, for the longest time, comprehend the concept of unconditional love. That isn’t true anymore. His constant, unwavering love has healed me in ways I never could have imagined. Through him, I learned that you can make mistakes and still deserve love. You can fight and then repair. Through his love, I understood how to unconditionally love myself.
Tai Koo Ma and Joey’s grandmother both give us the rings to exchange, and we embrace them tightly before taking them. Then we exchange our “I dos,” kiss, and walk through the applause of our loved ones up into the attic of our venue. There, we hold each other’s hands and cry and spend a few moments suspended in awe. The fact that we were able to create a moment like this together makes me know I picked the right partner to share this life with.
Afterward, there is food—we’ve laid out spreads of buttery curry puffs and salty spareribs and spicy mee goreng from Jaya 888, my favorite Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown. My brothers-in-law give speeches about how ecstatic they are to welcome me into the family. One of them pulls me aside after and says, “You know, you’re really good at this family thing. You already make an incredible friend. So I’m really excited that now you’re my sister.”
All night long, people keep coming up to tell me how much the ceremony meant to them, how it was worth the trip, how they were leaving feeling changed or at least reinvigorated about the power of love. They tell me that I should be immensely proud of creating something so beautiful. And they keep sharing their own little stories of what I mean to them. How I’d held them in hard moments or taught them to love. When Kathy had to move across the state in high school and didn’t know anyone in her new town, I’d handwritten her a letter every day. When Dustin’s grandmother died, I’d stayed up late every night talking to him on AIM. Tai Koo Ma and I had long confessional bonding sessions over being Westernized Malaysians. To so many people, I had been present in their most dire moments. I’d been the family member they’d needed to feel seen.
As Mark gives his speech, he tells the crowd that there were times he felt so tenderly toward me, it was almost as if I were his daughter, and he’d cried multiple times trying to write this speech for me. He says that a couple of years ago when he was going through a hard time, I called every week to check up on him. I remembered those conversations as me mostly complaining to him about work, regaling him with my brutal dating stories, and nagging him to rest more and eat better. At the time, he mostly brushed me off. But today, in front of everyone, he tells me that those calls meant the world to him and helped him work through the scary emotions he was feeling.
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