The Speech

We were stood there, she held my hand, wrapped her little fingers around my palms, squeezed it tight and whispered, ‘Speak now’. I held my breath, nausea washed over me, I swallowed, hard and gained composure. My hands were shaking whilst holding the microphone, I wondered if people noticed. The speech on my phone looked smaller and I could have sworn the words on the screen were moving too. I looked up and saw a hundred, no, ninety-eight pair of eyes staring at me. All of them, wide-eyed and half smiling, waiting patiently for me to simply open my mouth and speak. I wondered what they were thinking about and judging by the way they were looking at me … I didn’t have a clue.

A mere minutes before the speech was chaos and madness and I was worried about having to make this speech alone. The thought of it made me feel ill. It was the longest week organising this wedding. I hadn’t contributed much; I was more like a support animal. I smiled when needed, did what I was told, spoke when spoken to and kept quiet when I felt it necessary. I made sure to keep the environment light, made jokes when things were getting tense and comforted when things were getting stressful, I was an ear to listen when they were overwhelmed and gave motherly hugs when appropriate.

I was in a foreign country, I wasn’t part of the planning of this wedding, and I wouldn’t be able to help with the organisation even if I was physically and mentally capable to. My sister gave me one task during that week and I messed it up so badly I welled up and cried like a little girl whose ice cream fell on the floor as soon as it got handed to her. My youngest sister, the giver of the task, had to comfort me whilst juggling work calls and wedding tasks in one go. It felt a little pathetic. There was however one thing I could do and that was work on this speech. I tried before I flew to the country where said wedding was taking place, but because I am the worlds’ first class procrastinator I decided to wait till I got there. Hoping motivation would bestow itself upon me once I arrived; I was disappointed when no nothing unfolded.

Dumfounded that not even the night before the wedding past midnight, after the longest day most stressful day of flower arranging that lasted three hours longer than we had planned. Still, there was no motivation to be found. Even after seeing the glow on my middle siblings face, her smile as we were slaving away sorting through the last bits of wedding organisation, she was giggling, skipping and practically dancing around the venue, overly excited she was getting married tomorrow. No motivation. Not even after the family had finally reached the last straw with one another and ended up having the biggest fight with the bride begging us to stop because it was our last night together. We made up eventually, mom and I tag teamed and made peace with father. Luckily the bride was so looking forward to the next day she simply nodded her head in approval once I signed a thumbs up that we were all getting along. She sat at the table with the youngest sibling and was both giggling together and chatting away. It was a beautiful sight to see after knowing all they had been through the past couple months together.

The youngest sibling offered to help write half the speech if we divide and conquered what we wanted to say but for some unknown reason I said no as my brain couldn’t fathom how speech could be written by two very different style writers. My sister had also done so much leading up to this day, she could barely keep her eyes open, and so being the eldest I wanted to take charge, I told her to sleep and that I had this. She simply turned over and started to drift into dreamland for a good one minute before I broke the mug, scared the life out of her and she helped me clean everything up before attempting sleep again. I however was struggling to find a comfortable position to type my story and my eyes were heavy. I too drifted ever so sneakily and quickly to sleep. I said nothing the next morning of my inability to finish the speech. I tried unsuccessfully the next morning whilst bride was getting ready and still left the speech half written. ‘I’ll have time later I thought … I thought!

During cocktail hour we were doing our duty and socialising with the guests and my sister asked me the dreaded question; ‘Did you finish the speech?’, my eyes widened so much she didn’t need an answer. We both considered not saying anything at all or just saying the first thing that popped into our heads but being an amateur with public speaking and my ability of always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, I thought it was wise to finish this darn speech. We grabbed mother of the bride and we tried finishing and practicing together. Disaster unfolded when mother said she gets nervous speaking in public and wasn’t sure she could say more than the introduction. Youngest sibling finally cracked from all the stress of wedding planning the last couple months, she yelled at me, ‘this speech isn’t my style, your writing style doesn’t suit me and our humour is different, I can’t say this speech!’. She stormed off. I sat there in complete silence. I was already insecure about my writing skills and often wondered if people found my humour funny. I started to think if I was going to end up saying this speech alone, would it bring the same effect? Would anyone even appreciate it or find it a little funny. I had a mini meltdown before finding my cool by the time she came back. She returned a new person and we put our heads together and got this speech finished in time.

We sat at the table, nervous, we just sat down and we were summoned. The three of us stood in front of the crowd of ninety-eight. Suddenly I was aware of the length of my dress, the definition of my curls, the skin on my nose that was peeling because I was sick all week this was the consequence of blowing my nose. I was aware of my heels and wondered if I would be able to walk in them in public, what did I look like walking in heels anyways. I was aware of the itchiness of my legs and ankles and arms and wrists, those damn mosquitos made me look like a fool scratching away like I was plagued with chicken pox. I was aware of the heat and thought I should have had some water before walking up here. I was aware that there were ninety-eight people staring at me. People I knew seven years ago and hadn’t spoken to them since I left the island. Here I was, feeling naked and bare before them, prepared to make a speech with my youngest sibling.

After mother said her introduction part of our speech she simply took a few steps back and it was my turn. My throat closed up and I made the mistake of looking up and seeing all those faces. Faces of people I hadn’t seen in seven years, in a country I had left in a hurry without properly being able to say goodbye to the life I had lived when I lived here. Now I was back, standing before all of them, seeing how they had all grown up, got married, created families and got jobs they enjoyed. I wondered all in a second before I was prompted to speak, what on earth they thought of the prodigal sister who finally, after seven long years returned, unmarried, looking practically the same and not as successful as the rest of them. I wondered if the thought I failed in life after leaving the way I did and returning empty handed. My mind was about to explode with the directions it was running in, with the thoughts it was processing, with the nerves it was dealing with, with the heat and the dress and the hair and the peeling skin. The sound of my heart pumping, maybe everyone else heard it too. I looked to my left and the youngest sibling looked at me and said ‘Speak … now!’