My Daughter Kiley's Wedding

Sam and Kiley, 6/24/11

My daughter Kiley was married to Sam H____ in the Albuquerque LDS Temple on Friday, June 24, 2011.  Theirs was a whirlwind romance, commencing shortly after (a) Sam arrived home from his church mission to northern Chile last fall, and (b) they met at the LDS Institute of Religion near the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque.  (The men in Sam's family traditionally waste no time in getting married after their stints as missionaries.)  Kiley was very young -- 19 in March -- for marriage, but the match is a good one and I have no doubt that Sam will care and provide well for her.  Kiley made a beautiful bride in the custom-designed dress that we engaged Erin M_____ (our bishop's wife) to make for her.  Sam, whose mother Celestine is one-half Japanese, will bring some Asian ancestry into our family, which I think is totally cool.

Do I feel regrets at "losing" our "baby"?  Perhaps a couple.  One, any familial upheaval in my current state of (un)health is more than a little difficult for me to bear.  (I've already sort of latched on to Kiley's dog Mischa -- whom we're now being landed with a second time -- as a surrogate for Kiley.)  And two, I feel wistful that Kiley and Sam have decided she will attend school at the local community college this fall instead of continuing at UNM.  (I can understand their reasoning in light of the extremely stressful -- if ultimately successful in terms of GPA -- freshman year Kiley had as a music major at UNM, which was made much worse by the distractions of becoming engaged and planning a wedding.  However, I still hope she'll go on to earn a four-year university degree, even if she never has to support them or even work full-time.)

[Update: Kiley did ultimately decide to remain at UNM, although she's changed her major to Family Studies.]