Cut back to the actual day of the Christening.
With about an hour to go, everything remains... fraught. V is still in hospital, although her lift is on the way. She's calling every few minutes, because there is still no key to the room we've booked. I pity the woman who's number is in the emails, because she's getting called only slightly more often than I am right now.
F is now awake and hungry; I've run out of pre-bottled food for her, because I thought V would already be here to feed in person. The rest of us have food now, which is something at least. V's mum has stayed up most of the previous night preparing smörgåstårtor*, cupcakes and cookies, and it's all just arrived with V's sister. There are hand-painted fondant teddy bears. This is both amazing and unbearable (editing note - no pun intended, I swear), because such glory should not be served in a community hall kitchen, as may yet occur.
At least the weather hasn't taken an abrupt turn for the worse. No, it's stayed formidably sultry and hot. How helpful.
As has been occurring all weekend, people keep turning up and offering to help. Everyone has been incredible. I actually start feeling bad that there isn't more anyone can do. I know myself that feeling of frustrated uselessness when you want to pitch in and can't. Now I'm spreading that around. It doesn't relieve the tension any.
With only half an hour to go, V arrives. Other than being a bit flushed, you wouldn't know she's come straight from an acute admissions ward. She's masterfully disguised her drip connectors with pearls. But if she tries to do more than stand still, then she gets terribly breathless. I sympathetically respond to her arrival by hurling our daughter into her arms for a feed and then rushing out of the room to go and meet the priest over the road in church.
"Hej, sorry I'm late, no need to panic but my wife is ill and she's just come from hospital but it's all okay, we're going ahead but we might be running five or ten minutes late!" I tell the priest, who looks appropriately impressed.
And then takes it all entirely in his stride, explains things to the verger and organist, and sends me back to collect everyone. I run back over the road. I'm glad I'm in a kilt. It makes me look even more wildly unkempt and out-of-control than my (currently ridiculously shaggy) hair (for a role) does normally. Not that this is an entirely normal situation.
Except that then it is! More or less, give or take pneumonia and the oppressive weather. Somebody nice, not the woman who was supposed to, has turned up with a key for the room. Our two familes are setting up chairs, tables and gigantic platters of cookies with well-drilled calm. F has been fed and seems... rested? Well, no, more interested in why so many exciting people are carrying plates of delicious goodies about, but not squalling.
We all go over to the church. There's a bit of a panic in the vestry, where F needs to be changed into her christening dress and then decides she doesn't want to let Godfather B carry her in (even though she's been flirting happily with him all weekend). This last minute fluster is nearly the stalk that paralyses the camel. But our priest takes charge, makes swift decisions and moves us into place.
And off we go.
In what seems like about fifteen seconds through the reversed telescope of memory, we're back in the church hall, surrounded by opened presents, the incredible food either eaten or parcelled out for relatives to take away, the guests happy and leaving. It's rather surreal.
But it was a delightful success, after the kaleidoscopic jumble of the preparation.
Today turns out to have been Pentecost. In Sweden, this is called Pingst, which sounds faintly like the patron saint of penguins to me. The gospel of the day, dealing with the gifts of tongues and the multiculturalism of the good news, is very fitting, and the service is very simple but very touching for it. And although (as when we married) the reception afterwards is a blur in which we don't get to adequately meet, talk to or thank everyone enough. V doesn't even get to eat a cupcake before she has to go back to the ward, which is about the only disappointment of the day.
I feel very relieved, standing in the now-empty hall. Without my family (step and original) and friends here, this would have been an utter nightmare. It makes me very glad to know F's Godparents are so capably reliable. It's also another testament to how much V and I have to live up to in terms of parenting ourselves.
But we wouldn't have coped as well as we did without being very well-raised. We're doing alright, I reckon. Touch wood, we're doing alright.
*That's a giant savoury sandwich cake, for those who don't know. Imagine all your favourite sandwiches piled up and bound together by extra slices of ham, brie and smoked salmon. It's exactly as good as it sounds. A dream made flesh for me personally, although I'm sure experiences vary with your love of sandwiches.
No comments:
Post a Comment