File #10 - a Jar of Us
Sometimes, the idea of including rituals in a ceremony wins people over slowly. And sometimes they’re still not totally won over until they actually see it happening.
At a recent vow renewal, the couple had chosen a sand blending ceremony - not because they were the “airy-fairy” type (his words, delivered with a half-grin), but because their primary-school-aged children were right at the heart of why they’d reached this milestone together.
He’d been sceptical. “It’s a bit…symbolic,” he’d said beforehand, in a careful tone that made me think that what he really meant was, “I don’t want to feel silly.” But he agreed to it for her, and for their kids, who had taken the idea very seriously indeed.
When the moment came, the atmosphere shifted. Each child stepped forward clutching their little pot of coloured sand like it was treasure. They poured slowly and carefully, watching the grains make tiny rivers and ridges as they settled on one another. The room quietened around them.
Then the couple added their own layers. His hand shook slightly and I swear I saw him tear up, and then he laughed at himself, which made everyone else soften. The colours built into something unexpectedly beautiful: a pattern the family would never be able to recreate again in exactly the same way.
That was the point, of course - lives blending not into sameness, but into something shared and inseperable.
Afterwards, he looked down into the vase of sand, eyebrows raised in surprise. “I get it now,” he said to me. “It’s actually really lovely.”
Their six year old daughter, solemn as a tiny priestess, said, “It’s our family in there.” And honestly? She wasn’t wrong.