Avery and Mel with the kids following their wedding. Photo courtesy Avery Haines
I?ve posted one photo on Facebook of my daughter?s grade eight graduation; some videos of my freakish hairless cats. I?ve tweeted about the crazy places in the world I?ve travelled. Other than that my public life has been pretty much private. I tell myself it?s not a conscious decision. That it?s my inner bristle at the oversharing phenomenon, where every moment is plastered online. Where we all seem to know each other a little too well, without really knowing each other at all.
And then Orlando.
I have nothing to say about what happened that you haven?t already read or felt, or perhaps still feel, despite our short attention spans for tragedy.
Orlando happened eight weeks and one day after I got married. It was a small ceremony. And it was a surprise. As in, Mel didn?t know. The ruse was this: a fancy birthday dinner out and a faked emergency stop at City Hall for ?a story I was working on.? We walked out of the third-floor elevator into the wedding chamber, and Mel still wasn?t sure what was happening. It only sunk in when my three kids, standing at the altar, enveloped us both in a tangle of hugs. The answer, through a stream of tears, was “Yes.” My kids insist that Mel married them that day, as well as me. It was my 20-year-old son who suggested the surprise wedding as a birthday present: ?Mum, Mel is our family. It should be official.? On the day of the wedding, my 15-year-...