Family Wedding

My parents were married for over 40 years. After Daddy passed away, Mother seemed content to live alone--although she was seldom alone for long. With four married children and 12 grandchildren, who keep having great-grandbabies, it seemed that there was always somebody around.
We are a large, close-knit family, and we call, e-mail, and get together frequently, so most everybody knows what is going on with everybody else. That's why, when "Grandma" acquired an admirer, the news spread fast.
We were not at all surprised that a man found her beautiful, charming, sweet, giving, unselfish, and excellent company. After all, we all felt the same. Whether we call her Mother, Mama, Mom, Grandma, we love her like nobody else. However, we were all, I think, immediately interested in how this man would change her life--and ours.
She had always said that while it might be nice to have a friend to do things with, she was not interested in getting married again. She didn't want someone to come between her and her family. And what man would be willing to accommodate the controlled chaos generated by all these kids, grand kids, and babies?
This man.
He would.
He's a gentle, loving man, a strong Christian, and he appreciates what and who she is, because he has known her as a friend for many years. He still has a little trouble keeping up with who is married to whom, whose child is whose, and where we all live and work. But he is trying.
Yes, her life is changing. She will be leaving the house where she has lived for more than forty years.
And so will ours. Our family has grown too large to gather in any one's house now, and we will have to figure out where we can get together for holidays and birthdays.
She may not always be available to us, because they will be doing things together. It's going to be an adjustment for all of us.
But what a blessing for all of us. Mother has a new life partner, a husband with whom to share all that life offers.
We, her children, have a new step-father, with a kind and loving heart big enough for all of us. The babies love him too.
Dawson has already informed us that as soon as they get married, he will be calling him "Pa".

Thanks be to God, the Father of us all.