Remarks of Kay Montgomery

Executive Vice President, Unitarian Universalist Association
Wedding of Julie and Hillary Goodridge
May 17, 2004

I'm Kay Montgomery, Executive Vice President of the Unitarian Universalist Association and, more important for this day, friend and awe-struck witness.

My youngest grandson is about your age, Annie. When Simon was four he was telling me all the things he liked to do. “What I like to do best,” he said, “is to decorate my mind with rememberies.”

We're here today for a wedding, a rather particular and significant wedding. But for rememberies too. There's a quote by the novelist and columnist, Jim Carroll, “Marriage isn't something you do,” he says. “It's something that happens to you. One day you wake up and find you are married because your loves and lives are inseparably bound to one another. If you are lucky, this news will be greeted with laughter.”

So it seems pretty important to acknowledge that this marriage has already happened in many ways already and will keep happening. All your memories brought here today. Your meeting, your struggles, your joy in one another, the moment when you became Mommy and Ma in addition to being Julie and Hillary. All the memories you've memorized.

We, we cloud of witnesses, rejoice with you now just as we have marveled at your generosity and resilience and humor (God knows you've needed that!) over the last few years.

I know that you know how important this building and this space are to me. So, on behalf of the Unitarian Universalists who have watched and tried to help watch over your family, thank you for blessing it with your presence today, thank you for helping to make the world a better place, a world we vastly prefer. These walls will be forever embedded with this joyous and this sacred remembery.

Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon St. | Boston, MA 02108 | 617-742-2100