Though it has been over twenty years, I still remember the incident like it was yesterday. It was July 9, 1983, and my favorite aunt, Jewell, was getting married. I was ecstatic. There were five children in the wedding party: my cousins, my little brother Jonn-Jonn, and me. The huge wedding of over 300 guests and twenty attendants was beautiful and came off without a hitch—almost. The hitch, as it turned out, was Jonn-Jonn, the ring bearer.
The rest of the wedding party made it down the aisle just fine. First went the bridesmaids followed by the groomsmen, with each bridesmaid carrying a candle. Then it was time for the ring bearer. He looked so dapper in his little white tie and tails. You could almost hear the collective “awww” in the minds of the guests as they turned to look at him or watch the spectacle as it turned out.
See, my brother, who in his defense was only four years old at the time, had been promised money and a toy if he behaved himself and walked down the aisle as rehearsed. But there was no manner of money or treats that could persuade him. He wanted to carry a candle like the bridesmaids. The thought that we got to handle something as cool as fire, and he didn’t was just too much for him to take. He would not budge and had actually begun to cry—loudly. Whispers of wonder at what the hold up was started to spread amongst the guests as my “Madea” discreetly waved a dollar at him in a vain attempt to coax him down the aisle.
The wedding planner, at her wits end, briefly considered giving him a candle, and might have if the likelihood that a four-year-old would succeed only at setting the sanctuary or himself on fire, not been so high. My parents, as members of the wedding party themselves, could only stare in embarrassment at their son’s staunch refusal to move, thus bringing the ceremony to a halt.
