A Pink Dress Celebration

My best friend got married today. She wore a pink dress, and it was a beautiful day. There are lots of thoughts and pictures still to come, but for now, here is the text of the toast I gave during dinner.

Mazel tov Mira and Glenn. Wishing you both a lifetime of happiness, laughter and love. It was an honor and a pleasure to be there on your day.

On a Thursday night 3 years, 7 months, 3 weeks and 3 days ago, I made a phone call. It was to Mira, to tell her that David and I had just gotten engaged. It was late, and it was cold, but Mira didn’t care. Sporting her pajamas, mouth-guard and glasses, she met us on the corner of 73^rd and Amsterdam, and we celebrated together in that extraordinary moment where my life was divided into before and after.

 On a Wednesday afternoon, 51 weeks and 4 days ago, I got a phone call. It was Glenn, and he had a quandary. Hurricane Sandy had just swept through New York, and the devastation she left behind had derailed his plans to propose to Mira. It seemed that he had come up with a brand new idea, and he needed my help to pull it off. 

 Which is how, exactly one year ago today, I found myself watching as Glenn got down on one knee and Mira’s expression turned from shock to wonder. It was the middle of the afternoon and I had to dodge the Sunday crowds to take pictures, but I didn’t care. I stood on the corner of 82^nd and Amsterdam and we celebrated together in that extraordinary moment where her life was divided into before and after. 

We celebrated together.  

Mira, the past twelve years of our friendship have been ones of excitement, growth, and exquisite change. But more than anything else, they have been years of celebration. 

In college we celebrated the beginning of every semester, the end of every round of finals, and even a good Sherman meat day. We celebrated graduation with a senior week that is, for obvious reasons, just a hazy memory, and with a tear-soaked weekend that is crystal clear. We celebrated your first Manhattan apartment with Chinese food delivery on the floor of your living room, and the end of the first day of my bar exam with a phone call from you reminding me to set my alarm, lest I accidentally fall asleep and miss day 2. We celebrated the first time David came over to my apartment for a Shabbat meal with whiskey shots in my bedroom (before he showed up, obviously), and we celebrated the beginning of your relationship with Glenn with bottles of Diet Snapple in Pizza Cave on 72^nd Street. Keep it classy, I always say.  

We celebrate new shoes with text messaged pictures and the perfect pair of jeans with dressing room selfies. We celebrate an amazing piece of jewelry and the perfect nail polish color, and we celebrate every morning with an e-mail exchange, even when, as we say, everything is horrible about everything.  

It’s the little things. And also the very, very big ones.  

So today. Today, in this moment, we celebrate again. We celebrate a brand new beginning, a life forged, and a future of gorgeous possibility. And I celebrate my radiant best friend who has become my family, and her forever man who has filled her life with happiness and love.

There is nowhere I would rather be than here. And no one I would rather celebrate with than you.

L'chaim.