"Josh wants to have his fingers removed so he can do baseball when he's older." We can never find shoes that fit right," Amanda explains. "I think we're gonna have Kristian's extra toes removed. Amanda likes to remind people that he's in a medical book somewhere. He was born with 12 fingers and 12 toes and only three chambers in his heart. Amanda's first kid was born when she was 17. She hugs me, and I say hello and ask how her kids are, which is the easiest way of making conversation with most anyone I will meet today. Cousin Amanda is the first to recognize me. As I approach their huddle I can see their faces crinkle, searching for familiarity in my features. We are all in our 20s, and though I've changed the way I dress and walk and do my hair, they all look pretty much like they did when we buried Grandma Sue, give or take a few pounds. A clump of my cousins stands around, chatting. The wedding takes place at a carport, currently housing three F150 trucks and a suburban, that sits between my aunt's home and my grandfather's trailer house. And did you notice my polo is Lacoste? Look at me and envy. I am well-educated and live in a metroplex. I am making a statement in my designer jeans. I am wearing Valentino sunglasses and my hair is sculpted into a faux hawk. When I step out of my Ford Explorer onto the soggy ground, my leather sandals sink into the earth. It rained throughout the night, and the path is dotted with pools of red-brown slush. I'm still trying to decide which of three ensembles to wear as I ramble past overgrown shrubs and mesquite trees that scratch at my paint job. The idea of not wearing a tie to an evening wedding is blasphemy. I'm the visual specialist - mannequin dresser - at a Banana Republic near Dallas. While packing last night, I called my father, who told me not to bother bringing "anything fancy" to the casual ceremony.
To get to the wedding, I drive down a long dirt road that connects the highway to a handful of houses and trailers and doublewides that sit in the middle of fields and horse pens. But my father and his siblings are unhappy about PawPaw's impending marriage. I'm running out of believable answers to the question of when I'm going to bring home a nice Texas girl. As a gay man, I tend to steer clear of family gatherings. This is my father's family from Tuscola, Texas, population 714, and I haven't seen most of them since Sue died of a heart attack while cleaning a travel trailer eight years ago.
“I had my grandfather’s portrait tattooed on my arm in January because I want my new friends and my children to be able to know what he looks like in the future,” she said.It is the summer of 2006, I am 20 years old, and my grandfather is marrying my dead grandmother's identical twin sister. The young woman even has a tattoo of her grandfather. She insists on taking care of them in return as they mean a lot to her. Fu was raised by her grandparents from the age of ten after her parents divorced and she formed a special bond with her caretakers. Keeping her plans a secret, she took her grandfather for a regular hospital check-up, only to reveal that they were going to take pictures later and he agreed. Fu arranged a 3,000 yuan ($475) surprise photoshoot. Fearing he might never get to fulfill the dream of walking his granddaughter down the aisle, Ms. The man fell seriously ill last September, with doctors warning that he could pass away at any time. Despite having no plans of getting married anytime soon, Fu Xuewei decided to don the bridal gown for her grandfather.