I recently came across a poem [yes poem] by Neil Gaiman. Not only was I pleasantly surprised, I was deeply touched.

The piece struck a chord with me because (sniff. snort. sigh.) our baby boy is getting married this year. Yes, the one I reminisced about a few years ago… pondering,

Where did the years go… Why won’t he let me rock him to sleep any more…or comb his hair… or at least find him a wife so he doesn’t have to live alone…

As a mother there are so many things I want to tell him… to prepare him… and then I realize I cannot. In  Wedding thoughts: All I know about love Neil says it so well I just had to share it with y’all.

 

Wedding thoughts: All I know about love

Neil Gaiman poetry

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.

This is everything I’ve learned about marriage: nothing.

 

Only that the world out there is complicated,

and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,

and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,

is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,

and not to be alone.

 

It’s not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it’s what they mean.

Somebody’s got your back.

Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn’t want to rescue you

or send for the army to rescue them.

 

It’s not two broken halves becoming one.

It’s the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home

because home is wherever you are both together.

 

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,

like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

 

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.

Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.

Because nobody else’s love, nobody else’s marriage, is like yours,

and it’s a road you can only learn by walking it,

a dance you cannot be taught,

a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

 

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,

not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.

And your hands will meet,

and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that’s all I know about love.