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Ira & Abby
I cry at weddings. Always have. Something about the purity of the moment, the vulnerability, the promise of someone to share your life with through thick and thin...well, it just gets to me. But, ironically, I descend from a long, long, long line of divorcers. In fact, you might say the Westfeldts were divorce pioneers.
My sister Amy, the journalist, and our resident family historian, has traced the divorce trend back to our great grandparents Alice Vairin and Patrick Wallace Ogden Westfeldt, who married in 1916, and divorced in 1940(!)—scandalous at the time. They had three kids: Wallace, Alice and my grandfather, Patrick (the Westfeldts weren’t very creative with names). Our great aunt, the second Alice, was a divorcée, and she had four daughters, all of whom divorced. Grandpa Pat married Betty Weems, and they had three kids: Wallace, Weems and my dad, Patrick (see what I mean about the names?). Grandma Betty was married and divorced three times and had shacked up with a jazz musician for years (unmarried) before her death; Grandpa Pat was also thrice married; my uncle Weems is on his third marriage and holding; and my dad just recently got married for, you guessed it, the third time. For those of you keeping score, that is a nuclear family of five where all but one member had a whopping three marriages.... Impressive stuff.
My boyfriend and I have been happily together for nine years. We’ve been trying to figure out what to do for our tenth anniversary next year ’cuz, y’know, that’s a big deal, ten years. Maybe we’ll get married. ’Cuz I’m a sucker for weddings. I guess it’s in my blood.
