Smiling and sighing simultaneously

by Todd Brooks

I was looking through a box in my office when I ran across the certificate.

My first thought was, “Oh, that’s where that is,” followed by the textbook definition of bittersweet memory.

The certificate is rather plain looking, but the emotions associated with it are still raw after 13 years.

Written on the certificate are the words that authorize me to officiate weddings in Ohio, a state I had never set foot in when I applied for the officiant’s license in 2010. I was pastoring a church in Marlow back then. A high school friend was getting married and wanted me to come up to Ohio to officiate his wedding.

I had not seen Matt in about 25 years, but through the marvels of modern technology, we had reconnected on a start-up social media platform known as Facebook. We were more teammates than friends in high school, but all those years later on social media with age, experiences and debatably more maturity under our belt, we just clicked and we quickly became better friends than we ever were in high school.

Matt was marrying a woman who went to the same high school, but at a different time than we did. They had met through mutual high school friends on Facebook and discovered they didn’t live that far apart from each other. He eventually moved to where she was so they could be together.
The best man, Randy, was another high school friend and teammate. Unlike Matt, Randy and I were good friends in high school and we picked up right where we left off when we reconnected on social media. Randy had been like a big brother to Matt. Randy was a senior when Matt was a freshman and Randy looked after him. They had a close bond.

When Matt got engaged, he said both he and his future bride, who I had also got to know over Facebook, wanted me to officiate their wedding. Honored at the request, I gladly worked through the process of obtaining my officiant’s license for Ohio.

That July I boarded a plane and flew to Ohio. Matt, Randy and I had the best time hanging out until the big day arrived. The wedding went off without a hitch and I returned to Oklahoma. I was glad to have had that experience with my friends and honored to be a part of Matt’s big day.

By now the reader may be wondering, “That’s great, but where’s the bittersweet? Where’s the raw emotion?” That would come exactly a month after the wedding day.

I had returned home from work that August day when I got a phone call that changed everything. It was Randy’s wife and she said Randy needed to talk to me. I could hear him sobbing in the background.

He got on the phone. I was confused about what was going on. He was crying so hard he could barely get the words out.

“Matt’s dead,” he finally said.

“What,” I exclaimed and sat down. I was stunned. I was numb.

Matt had died in a freak accident while working on his car in the garage. His wife had found his body after he had not come back in the house for an extended time.

A month after officiating Matt’s wedding, I was heading back to Ohio, this time with my family in tow, to attend his funeral.

The wedding had been a small one, so Randy and I had been the only people from high school there. It was a different story for the funeral. There were many classmates that I had not seen in decades. There were a lot of laughs and a lot of tears over those couple of days.

Matt, in his death, had brought us all together again, something he would have been proud to have known.

That is why when I see that certificate and think about its meaning, I smile and sigh at the same time.