Social Post : Best Man

Yesterday I was the best man at my best friend's wedding.

I was honored to have been chosen.

As months passed and the date approached I wrote and rewrote the toast many times. Initially I wrote about the grooms family history and his personal characteristics. I translated this into Chinese with the bride. I thought everyone should know on both sides what this guy is made of.

Realizing it was not a history lesson. I wrote the speech to reflect my life experiences with Colin to tell a character story of the man I know so well. Then I realized a man's actions must speak, not a man's best man.

As the wedding date came closer and brought plans, dresses, tuxedos, decisions, and timing, it dawned on me what the wedding rituals are all about.

Every ritual signifies a part of the relationship between two families. A marriage is made up of a series of negotiations and agreements. As single men we often think of a marriage as a kind of legal trap for the stupid. It is not. It is a time to define a complex series of subtle relationships that exist between two families.

My wife and I could never get our parents to meet and have not done so even after six years going strong. I never had a chance to begin the process in my own experience in marriage of helping individual people within families become a group.

That is when it dawned on me that the only thing that really matters is that these families share the best that life has to offer together. What greater grudge can there be than to know that as a parent you have provided less than your best for your child.

The word compromise never worked for me. For me it brings up images of two starving men on a deserted island sharing the last coconut.

One family is a traditional Chinese family. They would like shark fin soup.

The other family is a traditional Berkeley family. They would like to save the species of shark endangered by the soup.

It seems we have only to compromise. One side has the soup and the other side does not. Isn't this a way of saying what is good for you may not be good for me.

This bothered me quite a bit. Knowing that this could be a problem for the Chinese family for the next 4000 years I decided to offer bit of a competition to save the shark.

I will be throwing a one year anniversary party in honor of the groom, the bride and the soup, same time, same place. I challenge all of you out there to contribute to the National Ocean Consevancy enough money to protect at least as many smalltooth sawfish sharks as you may endanger this year. Let me know how much you have contributed. I'll keep the score.

As we all know the smalltooth sawfish is at 15% of it's virgin population domestically and that is not OK.

What you may not know is that this is also advertised nationally by protection agencies across the Chinese provinces.

Chomp all the shark you want we will make more.

I thought you ought to know that.

-David Caro-Greene