You’re My Castle, You’re My Cabin, and My Instant Pleasure Dome
…I need you in my house, ’cause you’re my home.
(You’re My Home, Billy Joel)
I was about seventeen the first time I heard that song. It made me wibble. I went around humming it for weeks.
As the years passed, when I ran across the song I still liked it, but I didn’t think of it that often. Somehow, though, it’s been stuck in my head for the last couple days. What put it there? A news story I ran across that – like the song the first time I heard it – kind of made me wibble.
Dante White, 28, was thrown out of his mothers’ house when he was just fourteen. He’s been living on the streets in Washington, DC ever since.
Nine years ago, he met Nhiahni Chestnut, 39, who was also living on the streets after losing everything to alcohol and drug abuse.
The two instantly clicked. They fell in love and have been doing their best to carve out a life together, despite the dire circumstances of their lives. But they wanted more. They wanted to make their love official. In short, they wanted to get married.
When White mentioned this to a member of his Bible study group at Grace Episcopal Church, Margaret Davis sprang into action. She felt that money should be no barrier to marriage.
“In good Grace church congregation fashion, everyone got behind the idea: one person managed flowers, I helped with the wedding rings, one woman made the cake, someone helped with the tux and someone else with the bride’s gown,” she said.
Another member of the congregation even arranged a two-night honeymoon stay in a Potomac hotel.
White and Chestnut were married by Pastor John Graham, and had their first dance to jazz classic Take the A Train at the donated reception. They shared a chocolate layer cake.
The couple will return to the streets after their honeymoon, but White is determined to find a way to change that, too. He wants to find a place they can call their own where they can “cook pork chops and rice for ourselves.”
Again, the parishioners of Grace Church are doing all they can to help out. They’re looking for affordable housing for the couple, and gathering up donated household items.
As Davis says: “Love will get them through so much, but at the end of the day they do need housing.”
I find it terribly sweet and inspiring that their church community rallied to give them The Traditional Wedding Experience (TM)….but the cynic in me wonders why they had to have the white dress, flowers and tux when the same amount of money and time could have been spent trying to get them approved for some housing or setting up some other sort of support structure for them that would last longer than the memory of that time they got to sleep in a nice hotel…
I think I’m just in that kind of mood today though.
(You know something’s wonky when my comments get deleted as spam!)
What I tried to say yesterday was that I can see De’s point, but from the article, it seems like the congregation is aware of the urgent need for housing and is working to meet that goal ASAP. I think that the wedding in question was not a particularly opulent affair (though I could be wrong) and the difference the money spent would have made in the quest for services and housing would have been minimal.
Funny, the reply I left last night also seems to have disappeared down the spamhole.
I won’t try to re-write it since it was pretty much what NtB said.
I will, however, note that sometimes the seemingly frivolous is important emotionally. For two people who have spent half a lifetime being alternately ignored, reviled, and pitied, perhaps it was useful to give them a day or two of just being people with all the simple dignity that implies.
What Twistie Said! (I should just embroider that on a pillow, I say it so often.) I don’t think the congregation was ignoring the couple’s long-term need; but sometimes people forget how vital the need can be for marginalized people to feel – and be treated – as if they are, indeed, like everyone else. And for them to be able to actually SEE themselves that way may make it more possible for them to achieve it as a permanent goal. I think they’ve spent enough years living on the edge – and past it – that they won’t have forgotten what they need for the long term. Having a day of hope is NOT a waste of time and money.
La Bella Donna, if you make that pillow be sure to let me know the dimensions and color scheme so I can make and send you a pretty lace edging for it.
Any excuse to toss bobbins.