In five days, I covered four states, eight flights, five hotel rooms, one overnight delay, and a hangover that felt both earned and inherited. But mostly, I covered a lot of ground on what it means to keep showing up for love, in all its beautiful, exhausting, extraordinary forms.
The first stop was the Berkshires, where the last of the Camp cousins was married on a mountaintop brushed in autumnal gold. Guests rode chairlifts to the ceremony, balancing heels, furs, and a surprising amount of fear.
From below, the mountain looked calm and effortless — the fall trees illuminated by golden light. But halfway up, dangling in the cold October air, the fear is real – much like I have felt in my relationships. There are stops and starts, moments you grip the bar and wonder if you’re about to plummet to your death. But you stay in your seat because the view is worth it. That’s true for marriage, friendship, family — even grief. The scenery shifts, the passengers come and go, but you hold on. The key is finding joy in the journey – dangling 100 feet in the air.
The wedding was a celebration of beginnings and our shared heritage. It had been years since so many of us had gathered — people who once filled the edges of our childhood photos and the background noise of our holidays. Weddings have a way of doing that — calling us back to one another, reminding us where we came from and who we’ve become.
There are two kinds of families: the ones we’re born into and the ones we build along the way. Both take intention. Both take showing up. And both, when tended well, become the safety nets that keep us steady when the chairlift starts to sway.
From Massachusetts, I flew to Houston for a different kind of love — not new, but enduring. I went to be with Todd Mulville, West Point class of 1990, to plan a memorial service for his young, beautiful wife Crystal. Their love story spanned over thirty years and included a 4½-year cancer battle that would have broken the best of us. Their marriage, a testament to intentional love – every appointment, every midnight vigil, every small act of care that says, I meant what I vowed.
The memorial service will be held in January, but already the planning feels sacred. When someone so young and full of light dies, the logistics of honoring them become part of the grieving — a way of stitching love into structure. I was humbled to be asked to orchestrate her celebration of life — a life that reminded everyone around her that there can be joy even in suffering.
By the end of the week, I was in Atlanta, surrounded again by family — like Todd and Crystal, a family I had created. The Johnny Mac Soldiers Fund was founded by members of the class ’86 to honor their classmate, Colonel John McHugh, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. I’d been invited before but couldn’t attend. I was only 9 when he graduated so before deciding whether or not to go this year, I did some research. I found a photo of Cadet John McHugh surrounded by some of my favorites – Shelly, Jay Scott, Gordy, Dave.
And in the center, was my father.
As the Chaplain, my father was devoted to “building spiritual muscle in cadet athletes.” I learned John was one of them — a soccer player, a leader, a follower of Jesus. Two men, both gone now, somehow reaching across years to remind me that God’s fingerprints are everywhere — in the overlaps, in the legacies.
Friday night in Atlanta, classmates turned loss into legacy, showing up for one another decades later.
Like weddings, reunions are a kind of recommitment — a promise that time may pass, but love and loyalty still have a seat at the table. After the week I’d had, I was just grateful mine was near the bar.
By the time I landed home, I was out of lashes, puffy from eyes to ankles, and down to my emergency pair of underwear — a.k.a., the bathing suit bottoms. But my heart was full.
In five days — across four states, eight flights, five hotel rooms, and one overnight delay — I’d witnessed love in all its forms: love as it begins, as it endures, and as it carries on.
It was a good reminder to recommit to the people who make life meaningful, joyful, and hopeful.
Because love is God’s story, written through us.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13: 7-8
Hi Kathy- I Just read your beautiful post and wanted to say that you and your mom were so loved by Marcia. Your words about Love, family and faith; about what it means to show up for the ones you love, putting in the effort to travel near and far to honor those who make/made life meaningful and to recommit to those who are still with us brought me to my knees. It is in these most unexpected of moments that I find my grief unbearable. I think that seeing the pictures of you at your family wedding in the Berkshires, knowing that it was simply a timing issue that you and your mom did not get a last moment with Marcia that saddens me so deeply. We have never met, but I remember your mom and dad from the days I would go to West Point with my mother and Av, and I wanted to simply reach out and thank you for what you both meant to Marcia over all of the many years that the both of you were in her life. My mom did not have an abundance of joy in her lifetime but you and your mom were a part of the joy she did have. Be well.