I felt like sharing a slice of my life, 24 hours of it.

For 25 years, my partner and I lived next door to a wonderful family in brownstone Brooklyn. She is German-born; he is Irish. They are Catholic. They have three beautiful daughters. They were children when we moved onto the block, now they are beautiful young women. The oldest daughter married a man of Irish descent. The middle daughter married a Chinese-American man. The third daughter was married last night to a French man who is Jewish. Their actual wedding was held in Cambridge last May, but their family wedding was held last night in Brooklyn on the waterfront, with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

The groom’s extended family–sixty of them!–flew over from France. A score of the bride’s maternal family flew in from Germany. People of many nationalities joined together to celebrate their nuptials. The ceremony was a traditional Jewish wedding, with a Chupah (a ceremonial cloth) stretched over the couple, a cantor singing in Hebrew, and a klezmer band playing Yiddish music. The wedding was followed by dinner and dancing and toasts. Some of the toasts were in French, and the French clan laughed heartily at jokes the rest of us could not understand. Then the French clan surrounded the happy couple and sang a song in English from the American musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” They sang, “To Life, to Life, L’Chaim, L’Chaim, L’Chaim to Life. And if your good fortune never comes, here’s to whatever comes, drink l’chaim to life!” (I remembered that many years ago, my husband and I bought a house in Pound Ridge, New York, from the man who wrote that music.)

A D.J., played dance music, most of it written and performed by African American singers. The dancing was spectacular, although it didn’t include me, because my knees are too fragile for dancing. Swaying, yes, not dancing.

For a moment, life was the way it should be. I felt as though this young couple and their family and friends were repairing the world.

Tonight, my partner Mary and I went to a cabaret–Feinstein’s 54 Underground–to hear Christine Ebersole, the wonderful actress and singer, perform. The room was packed. There was joy in the air.

Life goes on.

A good 24 hours.