A celebration of life and love

Our dear friends Matt Stone and Tabatha Smith invited us to "A Celebration of Life and Love." The invitation came months ago. Today was the big day. When they visited us this spring we discussed religion, spirituality, philosophy, marriage and commitment, and discovered we had very similar views. Matt and Tabatha asked me to conduct the ceremony at the celebration. It was a commitment ceremony, similar in many ways to a marriage, but without the legal trappings. It was the idea of commitment that meant the most to Matt and Tabatha, and the participation of family and friends.

I knew it was going to be held at a camping and recreation area, Storrs Pond in Hanover, N.H., and I assumed it would be a casual and relatively small affair. To my surprise, it was a huge celebration with about 150 people, all of whom had a wonderful time. About a third of the people were members of a warm and friendly extended family built around the descendants of a wonderful woman from central Massachusetts named Bessie Kenney. The oldest guest at the celebration was my mother-in-law, Vee Frye, who is her daughter. The youngest guest was Ruby Stone, who spent a lot of time at the party nursing at her mother's breast. Ruby is Bessie Kenney's great-great granddaughter. Matt Stone, our host, is Bessie Kenney's grandson and Ruby's uncle.

When we arrived at 1 p.m. and saw the huge tent sheltering 25 tables for six, I thought there must be another larger gathering planned for the same area, but soon I began to learn the scope of this joyous celebration. First people gathered under the tent for drinks and socialization while two violinists played background music. At 2:30 everyone strolled down to the opposite end of the recreation area, where Tabatha, Matt and I stood on the shore of Storrs Pond with 150 of their closest friends gathered in a semi-circle facing us. The ceremony mixed elements of Zen Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist, Christian and Celtic elements, and included a loving-kindness meditation in which we all send loving kindness to everyone in the world. I asked all those gathered if they would support this couple in their committed relationship, and they answered as one with a loud, "We will." That made us all grin, as you can see in this photo.

After the ceremony, we strolled back to the tent area, and things got a little less formal. A disc jockey played recorded music while caterers served a huge meal with four kinds of meat, plus corn on the cob, veggie burgers, potato salad, pasta salad and lots more. There was plenty for everyone, (including vegetarians like Matt Tabatha and me.) The more we ate, the more the caterers grilled up on the big outdoor grills next to the tent. After that, a great live rock band took the stage and the younger members of the crowd started dancing. But others took advantage of the other recreational activities, including swimming, kyaking, volleyball, beach volleyball, whiffleball, Frisbee and lots more. Most of the guests had set up tents in the adjacent campground and people kept slipping off to change into bathing suits of other casual attire. Everyone was playing, laughing, dancing, singing or otherwise having a ball.

On one of the serving tables there was a typical wedding cake with a model of a bride and groom on top. Next to it was a blue box that was nicely gift-wrapped, then there was a basket of flowers and a lovely salt and pepper set. To everyone's astonishment, when it came time to cut the cake, the "gift," the "basket of flowers" and even the "salt-and-pepper set" were all cakes too. Not only were they so realistic that we could not believe they were cake, but they turned out to be absolutely delicious, right down to the edible flowers made of sugar.

Around sunset, after I had eaten a fantastic meal, played many games, talked to delightful people and gone for a swim, I went up to Tabatha to tell her that I couldn't remember ever having so much fun. That's when they started filling the hot-air balloon. Everyone got a chance to get a ride in the balloon, including the oldest (Vee) and the youngest (Ruby).

After dark, Tabatha said to follow the torches through the campground. The tiki torches led to a campfire area where the heartiest souls kept on partying late into the night. We sat in a circle around the fire socializing, singing songs, playing instruments and roasting marshmallows. I finally crawled into my tent around midnight, but I could hear folks singing and laughing until almost dawn.

It was, indeed, a celebration of life and love, and it was a joy to be a part of it.