It Was A Good Day

People huddled in scarves and let their hands freeze, holding a plastic glass of wine with their numb fingertips. In the corner of the rooftop, with a backdrop of buildings from a Berenice Abbott photograph, stood my sister and now my brother-in-law and a woman with a name of someone born in the 1960s conducting the ceremony. We'd all been milling about on the roof on this crisp day when suddenly the wedding seemed to have begun, although no one had said anything. But here it went, and wonderful it was.

We smiled and laughed as the bride and groom told stories about each other in honest and unique-to-them ways. At the corner of a roof in Greenwich Village, we all lived in a moment distinguished by love, and some of us realized that this is the best of what life is, two people deeply happy, choosing to tell everyone in their presence how they hope to remain together forever.