Leafing through an old photo album while visiting my Oma in Germany, I stumbled across the picture of my father’s parents on their wedding day. My grandfather looked dapper in a long dark coat, holding his formal white gloves. His dress shoes were buffed to a high shine. Beside him his new wife had hooked her arm through his and held a bouquet of flowers. Her 1920s style bridal veil flowed to the ground over her simple calf-length wedding dress.

A picture like countless others in family photo albums around the world – of newlyweds in a small village marking the beginning of their new life together, the photographer brought in specially for this occasion to preserve this image for posterity. But my grandmother’s expression, frozen in time for her granddaughter to discover sixty years later, featured a furrowed brow and downturned lips. There is no denying that the bride in this photo looked deeply disappointed and unhappy.

This did not meet my happily-ever-after youthful view of marriage. I could not let it pass.

“Oma, why do you look so unhappy in your wedding photo?”

My grandmother grimaced, “Oh, well, look at my bouquet – it looked like a twig broom. And my wedding dress was too short. Your grandfather’s coat was too long. Plus I didn’t like the photographer.” There were still other reasons that I no longer remember. It was a long list.

And so it was that I came to understand that my grandmother was a “glass half empty” kind of person.

NOTE: A version of this essay was published in the June 2022 edition of Neighbours of Windfields magazine. Click here to read it.