The face is somber, almost sad, unsuited perhaps for a wedding picture.
 Her beauty narrating her kin's thousand stories.
The brow barely raised, as if with premonitional worry and stoicism, about what is ahead, the mountain of grief to scale.
The lips closed, nary a smile to share with the nuptials' participants.
The complexion unmarred by time or sin, virginal luminescence so readily read.
The unruly tumble of curls, a sign of her obstinate stubbornness.
And the wide forehead, exposed, strong, like her force and courageous resilience.

My mother, on her wedding day, 21 years old.