Last weekend, my closest friend Rhonda married her best friend Amit. It was a hallmark occasion in our epic friendship and my heart was bursting with joy to witness their union. I write this post in celebration of their special day.
Back in the spring, Rhon asked me to speak at her wedding. To say I was deeply touched is true, but I also felt a profound responsibility to convey the joy I felt for my friend after 20 years of monumental ups and downs in both our professional and personal lives.
Those who know me, know that I can be entertaining, witty and relatively eloquent with little preparation on various topics but few know that I tend to shy away from expressing my inner feelings and thoughts publicly. I much prefer to discuss intimate matters only with those closest to me. So to speak publicly about my love for Rhon, in conjunction with the perfectionist pressure I put on myself, I felt nervous, in the truest sense of the word. Rhon tried to reassure me on Friday by saying my speech would be great even if I winged it, and though I knew this to be true, I still desperately yearned to get it right.
Unbeknownst to many, I had written two versions which I completely hated. A core essence was just missing, they felt generic and empty. Luckily, inspiration came knocking on Friday night at 2am. I woke up with a start, got up and started typing, words flowed magically from my hands onto the keyboard. Satisfaction came after 20 minutes. I went to bed, awoke hours later, read it aloud while recording myself, got verklempt and knew I had a winner!
So in honour of Rhonda and Amit (and with their permission), I would like to share my speech in celebration of their beautiful wedding last Sunday, September 10th 2017.
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“The life we all lead is a result of timing, circumstance and accidental collisions between humans. As social beings, I am often dumbfounded by the serendipitous nature of events that lead to coincidental meetings that change the course of our lives forever.
Nearly 20 years ago today, good fortune brought Rhonda and I into each other’s lives as Freshmen at McGill where we definitely Gert’s Til it Hurt. In the decades that have followed, to say we have supported one another through life’s hard knocks is to undervalue the magic and mystery of our relationship and what it means to me. We have helped one another mature into wonderfully accomplished individuals both professionally and personally; we’ve learned immensely from the school of hard knocks and as we like to say often, “this too shall pass and if it doesn’t kill us… it is making us stronger, right?”
Rhonda is undoubtedly the hardest working, clever, funny, smart and beautiful person that I am blessed to call my friend, she is the sister that I got to choose for myself. And seeing her follow the right career move to Toronto was hard but we both knew it was the right decision to turn the page on Montreal. And as life is often about accidental human collisions, her move brought Amit & Miki serendipitously into her life, in the same magical way that Charlie arrived and I can’t remember seeing her so joyful.
Over the years we have borne witness to many life events, we have travelled the world, loved hard and fallen even harder. We have been blessed with one another and an incredible circle of friends & family that help us get back up again and shine on. And as her friend, my ultimate desire is for her to find contentment and joy in her everyday life. And I know today that she has found this in her relationship with Amit.
What I love about this couple before me is that they don’t complete each other, they didn’t have gaping holes in their spirits before the other arrived. Both of them are strong, brilliant independent people that are whole in all of their beauty and imperfections. Their coming together just compliments each other. It’s incredible how their shared light shines brighter than the mere combination of two stars into one.
In a lifetime there are magic moments that get burned into our memories and my fondest one is a moment of pure joy emanating from Rhon as we drove with windows down, high above Santorini’s volcanic coastlines. As I hugged the curves of the narrow road in our little stick shift rental car, she had her arms extended out of the window facing the sea and she just bellowed out WHEEEEEEE so spontaneously, gleefully and free, over and over into the great expanse, all while the sunlight danced on her smiling face. I honestly don’t remember a moment where I have seen Rhonda as happy. That is until I saw her with you, Amit.
Rhonda, I am overcome with joy to see you so content, full of life and just plain happy. Thank you Amit for giving Rhonda lots of WHEEEE moments to date and also in all your future years together. I am grateful for you, and love you for bringing such joy to my dear friend, who means the absolute world to me.
So to conclude, I would like to ask you all to join me in celebrating Rhonda & Amit with the most joyful WHEEEE that we can all muster because as we have all lived through many dark moments, these moments of light and love must be celebrated.
So let us raise our glasses and on the count of 3, let us shout out WHEEEE to celebrate the happy couple.
1…2….3….WHEEEEEEE”
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Thank you Rhonda for being my pillar of strength over the last 20 years and for decades to come. I feel blessed to walk down the road of life with you by my side, because as we both know, it is the journey that counts, not the destination.
I am eternally grateful for the accidental collisions of the human kind that brought you into my life and for the serendipitous collisions that brought Charlie, Amit & Miki into yours. I am so happy for you both. Mazel tov!
I love you.
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