Holy cow, it’s Holy Matrimony time ~ November 24, 1988

David Heiller

I started thinking about marriage at an early age. Our seventh grade class was putting on a Thanksgiving play, The Courtship of Miles Standish, at school. I had the role of the minister. Toward the end of the play, the pilgrims made a circle and gave thanks for their blessings. I led the prayer. “Let us bow our heads in Holy Matrimony,” I began.

Ann Conrad, standing next to me, started giggling. She thought that was the greatest joke. I didn’t even know what I had said. It had sounded official, something a pilgrim would say. But he wouldn’t have said it to Ann Conrad.

Now, some 22 years later, the subject of Holy Matrimony has been raised again, and once again, I’m the culprit. It all started as a joke. Mollie was talking about her best friend at the day care. “I really like Bobbi Jo,” she said.

Grandma O watches as a very small Malika puts
the pieces of the puzzle in place.

“She’s a pretty good egg,” I answered in one of my standard lines.

“She’s not an egg, she’s a goy-yo,” Mollie said. “A goy-yo?”I answered.

“Not a goy-yo, a GOY-YO!” Mollie insisted. “Oh, a girl,” I said.

“Yes, a goy-yo,” she repeated.

“So she’s a pretty good friend. Are you going to marry her?” I said it as a joke, but Mollie thought the idea made sense. So much sense that she expanded to Tommy, Bobby Jo’s brother.

“I’m going to marry Tommy,” she announced at the breakfast table on October 13. Noah, Mollie’s older brother, asked why.

“Because I want to,” she answered. Then she paused. “I don’t want to marry Tommy. I want to marry Brooks. Is Brooks a boy?”

Noah answered yes. “But you can’t right now,” he said. “You have to wait till you’re grown up.”

“I want to marry Bobbi,” Mollie said in another change of mind. “Daddy, can I marry Bobbi?”

“No, you can’t marry Bobbi,” I replied.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because she’s a girl,” I said.

“Why can’t I marry a goy-yo?”

“Because it’s against the law,” I said in desperation.

Malika the ballerina princess, and would-be bride.

Laws or no laws, Mollie now goes through new partners several times a day. There’s Brooks, Bobbi Jo, Tommy, Noah (yes, her brother), Tristan, Mathew, and Queen Ida (our dog), among others.

At her rate, she’ll make Liz Taylor look like Mother Theresa.

She has learned an important exception though. “I really like you, Dad,” she said the other day. “But I’m not going to marry you.” That’s a relief.

All this talk had over-flowed to my wife and I. We probably should save our breath, but now we disagree on the proper age for our daughter to get married. Cindy feels she should be at least 30.

“Thirty? Holy mackerel, that’s old,” I protested, failing to remember my own age before I spoke. “Besides, you were 24 when you married me.”

Cindy didn’t answer that, letting me draw my own conclusions about why she wants Mollie to marry later in life.

Malika for her part is only three-and-a-half years old. Maybe this will all pass. Please...