Yesterday When I Talked About My Haircut I Also Showed You Pictures Of When I Was A Bride 11/1/1980. I Looked Happy On The Outside, You Did Not Know My Heart Was Crushed On The Inside. My Father Refused To Come To My Wedding. Let Me Share That With You. Keep In Mind Though That I Led Him To Jesus At The End Of His Life Here On Earth. Now That Is Healing And Restoration.

This is my story behind the professional make up application and hair done by my salon stylist for my wedding day. You see a happy bride on the outside but this is what happened that led up to that day, my wedding day. For some reason my father liked one Jesuit priest that con celebrated our wedding mass and disliked the main priest that conducted the wedding mass. Now in a picture I will share you may wonder why the church looks like a room and not a chapel. We chose to get married at the Jesuit university in which I graduated from. They had a beautiful chapel but we were expecting people to attend the mass that would have reached beyond maximum capacity to handle it. So there was a meeting room in which they did do masses on occasion on campus. So no beautiful chapel so to speak.
My father did not like the main priest that conducted our marriage ceremony and he told me he would not attend our wedding if that particular priest was the one marrying us in that mass. He stuck to his word. Even up to the night before our wedding. My former husband even tried to call and speak with him the eve of our wedding and my grandmother did not let them speak on the phone. I do not know if he was home and she just did not let them talk or if he really was not there. Regardless, my father said it and followed through. He even told a few of his relatives to not go to the wedding also. Guess what, some still did attend our wedding even though he tried to tell them not and others did not attend. We did the right and proper thing we included my father in the engagement announcement that was published in the newspaper. He is my father.
So, if you are not a daughter and a first born daughter of two girls (I had 2 older brothers) you may not understand this. Who wouldn't want their father to walk them down the aisle on their wedding day? I wanted mine to but he chose to not participate or even come to my wedding. I believe we did not speak for about a year after that. I received a phone call and my grandmother died and of course we attended the funeral. It was a little uncomfortable but I made it through. We eventually did have a relationship again. My father could be harsh at times or ridged is a good word to describe him. Then there were those rays of sunshine when goodness peaked through the clouds. I remember once he gathered my sister, brother and I (my other brother died at sea when I was still in high school if you are wondering because I earlier mentioned I had 2 brothers) for a breakfast meeting at a hotel and he presented us each $5,000.00. When my daughter was about 18 months old I worked for my father. He had property he owned and I oversaw a rental property in my old childhood neighborhood along with a few condos in the downtown area of the metropolitan city. I would bring my daughter to work with me on some days and when I did something good (like units were filled up) he would call and tell me I was going to get a bonus.
He was not all bad and did have a heart. The building he owned at one time use to be the local theatre we went to as children that had apartments above it. It was not a huge apartment complex but the apartments had old time charm, wooden floors and character like that. I talked him into letting me get Christmas gifts to give to the tenant one year. He was generous with the local Catholic church in which he attended. Actually I graduated from that very school connected to the church in grade school. If I remember correctly he made an agreement with them that they could lease the hall portion that used to be the theatre for $1.00 a year and I think it was for many years. They used that as their bingo hall amongst other events held there. He eventually sold that building and I think I received a bonus from that sale too.
When we were going to have our second child he paid for it and hired the workers to convert our attic into a master bedroom with a half bathroom and of course book shelves. I remember I would read books while sitting by a window. That was the very room I was on an exercise machine and I began to speak in tongues and have a vision. An angel also visited me in that very room I still recall the milky white full wings I saw of this angel that stood next to me while I was in that bed. I suppose I could dwell on the negative but I forgave my father and I eventually led him to Jesus 3 weeks before he died. I will see him in heaven and we will have all eternity to catch up.
He played a bit of favor with my children also. He loved my daughter and I will be kind in saying he did not show that same kind of love towards my son. Now my son would get a little mischievous when we would visit him. He would do things like change the hands of the clock in his living room. once my father had a deer made of wood as the body and sticks as the legs (that was by his fireplace) and I think he broke one of the legs. Of course, I would get a phone call with my father swearing using curse words about what my son did. My son was young then. Guess what? When my father moved from the hospital to the hospice house across the street from the hospital, he went there on a Thursday and this will show you how sick he was. He died that Sunday morning. He looked at my son and with a weak voice for he was dying told me son he loved him. This very child that was not grandpa's favorite came to his grandfather's bedside I believe it was near the death anniversary St. Teresa and read a prayer to his grandfather it may have been a prayer to this saint or related to her. Tell me God does not bring things around full circle. He does. We found out later that my son was so active because he had a thyroid condition that was diagnosed and then doctored for.
If you read the tone of this writing you will see that I have a forgiving heart and that I love my father. Do you know that of all the men in the world God chose him to bring me forth into the world. Back to my wedding day story. My mother at the time was married to a man that was a partner of a very nice event venue. I liked him and I asked him if he and my mother would walk me down the aisle and they did. I had a fairy tale type of wedding because the party center handled this wedding and with him being a partner/owner they did this for us. I felt a little awkward selecting a menu and things of that nature since I was not paying for it so I deferred to them and what they thought was appropriate. Trust me when I tell you it was an outstanding wedding. We had a prime rib, shrimp cocktail with all the trimmings sit down dinner for about 100 immediate family. Then the rest of the guests arrived and there was a buffet and the first set of guests were also able to go through the buffet too. With being of Croatian descent even though my former husbands family was of Irish, German, English, Scottish, Welsh descent they agreed to allowing us to have a live band that came in from another state for this wedding. They were a popular Croatian band. People had fun at this wedding.

I know my birth father wasn't present at my wedding but we had a beautiful wedding. See how God takes care of working things out. He really does. I have memories of my father in his tuxedo when my sister and I were in the Croatian Debutante Ball when I was a senior in high school. That was a few years prior to my wedding. I got married right out of college. I graduated in the Spring and then we were married that Fall. That is my wedding day story. Do not feel sorry for me but rejoice that my father is in heaven. Maybe you will meet him one day in heaven, that is if you are going to heaven for all eternity. I implore you to meet Jesus and invite Him into your heart and to forgive you of your sins so you will also be in heaven forever when you draw your last breath here on earth. To be absent from the body is to be present with Christ if you chose this for your life. Choose wisely.

Sorry for the glare I guess that happened when I took a picture of the picture. Hey I am not a professional photographer, I can laugh at my silly mistake.

Now the professional photographer took a picture with my eyes looking downward walking down the aisle, I do not feel so bad about my glare in the pictures.