On Friday night, as my wife wrote a message on a card alongside the gift we were preparing to give to my friend and her husband who got married yesterday, it came upon me that my wife and I did not receive wedding gift on our wedding day. Not even one. 

Yesterday, we drove up to the Bronx, dusk falling on us on the highway, as our boy slept in  his car-seat in the back. Hajia wore abaya. She thought what would happen if snow of this magnitude starts to fall in Nigeria. I wore something, something. We were in a Toyota Camry. The exact car I had imagined when I wrote her a love letter in 2011, saying I dream of driving that car with her by my side.  (Excuse my peasantry. I was a poor boy with modest dreams 🙂 ). So driving on Throg Neck Bridge last evening, with heaps of snow on road sides was, well, a dream come true!
When we got to the mosque, I was surprised to see that the groom was someone I know. The brother was a correct man who I had met last year at an NCNMO convention. I remember his gentle smiles and polite mannerisms. I remember discussing marriage with him over scrambled eggs. 
The ceremony was a modest one. To the point. Just like ours, but with more people and in the mosque. Sometimes when my wife is looking at pre-wedding photos, I think of how not having a big wedding might have been a compromise on her side – I know it is for me. And with this, I go to my point. 
We all have that dream, where everything is as we paint it to be. But then life comes with reality, and it is now upon us to negotiate. What dreams do we compromise and settle on, which ones would we vociferously go after. I have relatives who would not move on with life realities because they refused to negotiate, and time doesn’t care for human stagnation. 
Last night, my friend got married, and I was full of joy. Here’s to the latest couple, may you love each other, may you fulfil the purpose of marriage, and may my friend’s back not know the texture of the mattress. 🙂