joy

Full Transcript of S1E4 I Want to Have a Ceremony with You

First aired on Mar 13, 2020

Betsy and Brandon didn’t want to get married. But when Betsy’s mother was nearing the end of her life, they decided to honor their love in a ceremony called A Celebration of Love and Family.

Weiss: You know, both of our families are actually religious, Christian, and have a different sense of, you know, that you should get married if you’re in this committed relationship but we don’t feel that way. And so there’s sort of this tension, but reality in life of while we feel differently, but that’s okay.

What happens when our values and choices don’t match the expectations of our family? When we grow into different people than those who are closest to us? How can we still keep them close and nurture those important relationships while also finding ways to be true to ourselves? Today we will meet Betsy and Brandon who wanted to do their commitment a bit differently than their families expected. Join me to learn how they did it, and kept their families close.

This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas.

Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. I’m going to share a very special story with you today. Or, rather, our guest is. Betsy Weiss knew she didn’t want to get married. She became clear on that shortly after college, in her early 20’s. She had very clear and thought-out reasons for making this decision. When she met someone and started a relationship that meant a lot to her, that didn’t change. In fact it never changed. What did change is that her mom got sick, and then better, and then sick again. And Betsy was faced with the thought of losing her mother without having had the chance to mark the importance of her relationship with her mother there. She wanted to share the love she and her partner had with her mom. She also wanted to honor her mom for being the cornerstone of the family she had always been. So Betsy and her partner planned a ceremony, a non-wedding. They called it a celebration of life and family.

Weiss: I guess my story actually really starts like how I grew up. I grew up in a pretty conservative Christian family, school, church where I was taught that you shouldn’t have sex until you’re married, that you, as a woman, will serve your husband that he’ll be the head of the household. And, you know, a lot of my friends that I knew when were was young got married when they were 21-22. And I always knew… I was always an independent person, I always know that I was going to wait till I was 26. That was like my, well, I’m not gonna get married at 22 or 23 but I’m gonna wait until I’m a little bit older. Because that felt important to me and that was when my mama got married. She was actually 27. And then when I was in college, I really changed my perspective, my mindset, and actually left the faith that I had grown up in. And it felt like there’s a lot of toxic things, especially some of the things I was taught as a woman about my self-worth about like that I was told that I was causing men to sin and I was a problem because I was a female and an attractive person. And so I decided after college kind of in my early 20s, I wasn’t really interested in getting married anymore, that I might want to have a connection to someone, but that I never wanted to be… to feel like I had to serve someone else like I was lesser. I didn’t want to feel like a religion had power over me in that way and didn’t feel like I needed the government’s approval either. I also really didn’t like the sense of property that used to be attached, and in some ways, maybe still is attached to women and marriage. And so I sort of felt like, you know, that’s just not something I want. But then I met someone. I met someone named Brandon and we became really close. It was the first really healthy relationship I’d had. When I was in college actually, my mom had gotten sick. She had stage one breast cancer but had gotten better. And then a couple years later, it came back a stage four breast cancer and she had really good results through chemo, but in a moment when she was actually doing a lot better, I was in the car with Brandon, we were on the way to see his family. And I was sitting there and thinking, I want to have a ceremony with you. I want to do something with my mom, before she dies, like if something were to happen. And at the time, we’re thinking she had 10-20 years. We thought, you know, she was recovering really well. But I just said, like, I want to do this. I want to recognize our relationship with my mom. And he said, yeah, okay.

Betsy and Brandon didn’t really talk about it again for months, maybe up to a year. But in the summer of 2014, Betsy went home to help her mom because she was going through chemo again.

Weiss: And actually the day I got home, she told me that she had just learned from her doctor that they didn’t think that chemo was really going to work anymore, and she probably had about six months left in her life. And so in that moment, and as like a week or two went by, I called Brandon and said, I want to do something. I want to like have a ceremony with my mom. And, you know, he needed to think about it. Because what did that mean to him? What did that mean to our relationship? We’d been together for two years, which wasn’t actually that long. I actually was 27, which is funny that that’s sort of the age I had put in my mind when I was a kid that I wanted to get married. So as we started to think well, okay, this isn’t going to be wedding or marriage, what is it going to be?

This is the part of the story where we get to learn about the magic of Betsy’s mom, Carol. Despite having cancer, Carol found unique and creative ways to stay connected to joy and she brought those around her with her on that journey.

Weiss: We actually took, or I took lessons from my mom, who every time she had chemotherapy, she would throw a party. So she did this so that she could encourage herself and encourage people she saw in the hospital. She had told me that she would go in and it just seemed so depressing and sad and everyone was down because chemo is hard. And, you know, and a lot of people are facing the end of their life there. But she thought, well, I don’t want to be depressed and sad, I want to have fun and enjoy, and have this joy. Her name’s Carol and that like singing songs of joy sort of like what she would do with her whole life. So she would have theme parties. She had a twins party because we love the baseball team Twins because we’re from Minnesota. We had like a caterpillar theme, she would have a fourth of July theme and she would always make a little candy goodie basket. The caterpillar one I think she had like, made a line of little cupcakes that looked like a caterpillar. And the hospital would start to know like, oh Carol is going to come in today! And everyone would stop by and see these decorations and themes in the little chemo room. And you know, they would laugh and have this kind of party. And people will come in all dressed up for whatever the theme was, and you know, it’d be a really special thing to go to win a Carol’s chemo parties. And so I wanted to, you know, to keep that going that my mother was dying but, but instead of mourning together, why don’t we celebrate and have this party together of life and love that we’ve had? So we decided to call this ceremony a celebration of love and family.

The celebration of love and family took about a month to plan. As Betsy and Brandon began telling other people about it, it became clear that not everyone understood where they were going with the idea.

Weiss: Especially my aunts all were like, “Well, but so are you getting married? Or are you engaged? Like, I don’t understand.” We’re like, “No, we’re not. We’re just going to have a party and we want you to be there. And we’re going to talk about how we love each other. And we’re going to celebrate our families.”

I love this part of the story because we begin to see how the members of Betsy’s family, while they didn’t necessarily understand the vision for the ceremony, or understand why Betsy and Brandon were not getting married, were still supportive and loving.

Weiss: So we did need to figure out sort of what the day would look like. And we decided that we wanted to have sort of this simple ceremony in a park close to my house called Trefoil Park by the Red River in Fargo. This really beautiful spot that we put a canopy up and my immediate family, my dad and mom and brother and then Brandon’s family, his parents and his brother and sister-in-law came and we just told them to prepare some words if they wanted to share about how they love our families. And we were going to share about our love for each other too. We hired a photographer, which is something I’m so grateful for it because now as I look back, and remember my mother, I have these really wonderful pictures from our celebration. You know, Brandon spoke words to me and I spoke to him and there’s a lot of tears and laughter and, and one of the things I really remember that I said, that’s been with me and helped me stay strong as I know and my mom is gone, like you Brandon will be what helps hold me together. You know, she was like my best friend. We were really, really close. And when she did pass that was really true and, and saying those words and having that moment together, I think did bring us closer in a way I didn’t expect. To me, it was when I was planning the party, although it was about Brandon and I’s relationship, I was doing it for my mom and to share with her. But in doing the ceremony, and the celebration, I did feel much closer to Brandon. And I think it did kind of solidify our relationship in a way that surprised me. And then after we all spoke and shared words of love with each other, we went to my favorite Mexican restaurant called Mango’s and ate with my extended family. So my cousins and aunts and uncles were there. And then we… although you know, it wasn’t really anything that felt like we needed to follow tradition, I do really, really love wedding dances and my family loves wedding dances, and we all love to have a good time. So we had bought a hall, a space, and we invited extended friends family to that area. So we had about 60-70 people all come together and we had little, you know, desserts and d’oeuvres. And in the planning phase it was funny that one of my aunts was just like… it was so hard for her not to plan a wedding and so she was like, “Okay, well, we need centerpieces. So I’m going to create these centerpieces and we need a theme.” And they kept trying to ask me these questions. And I was… at the time I was trying to help my mother who was really sick and I’m like, “I don’t care. I don’t want a wedding. Please don’t make it like a wedding. But if you want to make a centerpiece…” Like, it actually was really thoughtful at the same time that they were… Although they didn’t understand maybe what we were doing, they wanted to be a part of it and and share. And so we had these really lovely, sort of like beachy-themed centerpieces on the tables. That was really fun. And then we danced. My mom was in her wheelchair, so we kind of wheeled her around and she even stood up a little bit with her oxygen tank and had a dance with my dad. And there’s these lovely pictures of her dancing with my dad and Brandon and myself. And it was a beautiful night that so many people got to share with us. And then it was actually two weeks later that my mom passed away. And so, I think, you know, she actually also got really excited planning the party just like she had for her chemo parties. And I think it really gave her some of the energy to make it a little bit longer in life. And then when she, after the party, I think she… She shared with us, she just was done. She was done with the chemotherapy that made her feel really terrible. She was tired. And although she wanted to live longer, it was like, you know, I’m okay with letting go. Which was a lot harder for the rest of us, but something beautiful I get to… we got to share and be a part of with her. So that’s really that’s the story of what the celebration was, how it connected, and sort of the story of losing my mother, you know, it’s all wrapped up in and tied in together too.

Thomas: Yeah. Oh, that’s… that’s such a beautiful story, just so much love and so much acceptance of the situation, all the different parts of the situation all together and allowing everybody to be who they are including the aunts who need to make centerpieces because it’s a wedding in their mind and that’s what you do.

Weiss: Well, and that was… it was interesting. It wasn’t just them too. A lot of people when we talked to them that were older and we’d say something about how we weren’t getting married. You know, some of them I think were happy we were doing something but also a bit concerned because a lot of people they were like, “Oh, well, aren’t you gonna get married?” and don’t understand when we say like, “No, we did. We did what we wanted to do. We had our ceremony like, that was it. That was great. We threw the party.” But you know, it also was a moment even when people didn’t understand or had a different sense of what relationships should be, they still came together with us and celebrated and had a wonderful time.

Thomas: I love what you shared about it being… it sounded kind of tiered in my head that you had different people at different parts of the ceremony. So you had like, you brought them in where you wanted them.

Weiss: Yeah. So we wanted… and actually Brandon was more concerned and protective of having some intimate moments. I was a little more like “Let’s invite everybody!” And he was like, “Well, I don’t know if I want that…” Like, he didn’t want it to become a wedding. He wanted it to be something different. And I was a little less concerned about… I knew for myself, it wasn’t gonna be. Like, well, we weren’t getting married. So, you know, that wasn’t as much a concern. But for him it was important that people know like, no, this isn’t a wedding, it’s different. So like he didn’t want every… everyone in our lives to come to celebrate us. And I think some of that protected the intimate moment that we got to have as two families coming together to celebrate us, like Brandon and I wanting to be together and also sharing appreciate this wonderful legacy and cornerstone of family that my mother had been. And they’re actually… Right after the ceremony and a little bit as we processed, both of us had some moments of regret that we didn’t share it with more people, not the ceremony, the moment of celebration, with… The intimate moment in the park, I think we’re really glad that was just our immediate family. But knowing afterwards that it would be my mother’s last couple weeks, and that the ceremony became even more meaningful than we had initially thought. You know, we did regret a bit that we hadn’t just invited everyone. We had friends from Philadelphia saying, “We want to come, we want to come to Fargo!” And I saying like, “No, like, we… it might be too much” or, you know, “No, this isn’t our wedding, you don’t need to come.” But afterwards, we thought, you know, it would have been great to celebrate with them. It was a really meaningful moment, though, you know. We in some ways, didn’t know what we were creating. But the one thing that we’ve talked about is, well, you know, we did it differently before. So if we want to, again, like we can throw another party and just celebrate something different in life. It doesn’t have to be the fact that we’re like committing to be together in my be you know if we have a baby or we might adopt, and maybe like, we’ll have a really big party with family then. And that can be a time when people come together in our lives that are important. And we can have a dance because we love to have dances! And just do it do it differently because who says it has to be just weddings when people get together and celebrate and dance and have time together?

Thomas: Absolutely. That is what the whole show is about that I’m doing so…

Weiss: Great!

Thomas: That’s perfect.

Weiss: Well, I’ll be listening! And I’ll be like yeah! I’m gonna do… I’m gonna steal all the ideas.

Thomas: And I was also curious what rite of passage do you wish you’d had?

Weiss: It’s interesting, I think with women there’s so much tied up in our sexuality actually. But I think like women there’s this sense of like purity, right? And that this is their rite of passage is like, are they still pure? And then, you know, they were this like white gown to show that they’ve never had any sexual experiences, and then they can finally, with their father’s permission, have sex, you know. And so a rite of passage that I wish I’d had was like teaching me healthy sexuality when I was young, instead of… Like, I had a purity ring and I was told that I needed to… I couldn’t even like, kiss someone until I was married. Those things really were unhealthy I think. And I just wish that people would have said, “You’re a person. A part of who you are is this sexuality. You can experience that. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” And that we could have like, celebrated our humanity kind of maybe, you know, in my early teens, not in a hyper-sexualized way, but in something that recognizes like, “It’s okay for you to like other women. It’s okay for you to feel sexual thoughts. It’s okay for you to not.” You know, like those things are okay. And I would love if there was some magical rite of passage that we could do for for young men and women to say like, “It’s okay for you to become a sexual being.” Like that’s a good thing.

Thomas: I love that. That is not traditional ritual that I know of. But should be!

Weiss: Yeah, what we had was, you know, a lot of the keep your purity. Here’s your purity ring. And, you know, the best women are the virginal, same kind of women.

Thomas: Right. Right. Goodness.

I am so grateful to radio fairy godmother Anne Hoffman for introducing me to Betsy and to Betsy for sharing her story with us. I especially love the clarity that Betsy and Brandon brought to the ceremony, their love for Carol, their respect for the family members who didn’t quite get it in the moment, and their commitment to honoring their desire to not get married. Ceremonies can be whatever we want them to be. They are a way to honor ourselves, our relationships and our growth. We can use them to mark transition, release old ties, start off on new paths, and affirm our commitments. Family and society will expect us to do predictable things, but we can surprise them if we want to!

Betsy Weiss carries on her mother’s audacity for life, sharing it as Carol would have wanted her to. You can read how she processes grief and life at the website thethingssheleftme.com.

Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to share it with a friend. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.