My wife and I were invited
to a destination wedding…

in Flint, Michigan.

Yeah, I know..
You laughed, right?
Flint, Michigan
is a hell of a location
for a wedding destination.
“Only champaign will be served,
no water.”
The couple is requesting cash gifts.
They want to buy
an American made car,
used, of course.
They’re hoping for a
used car dealer in Flint
to come through for them.
(There are no new-car dealers
in Flint.
It’s just too embarrassing.)

The kicker is that
the bride and groom
are Syrian refugees.
We met them at a “flee market” in Detroit.
(That’s what we bargain hunters
are calling those things, now.)
They are recent arrivals
who, two years ago,
made it to Greece by sea,
walked through Hungary
to Germany
where they booked a flight
from Berlin to Detroit
with the last of their funds.
Then, in a U-Haul truck
where they were living,
they moved to Flint
where they could afford the rent.

They fell in love with
the citizens of Flint,
their courage in the face of evil,
their struggle against
a deaf government that doesn’t care.
They could relate to people
living in a third world city
in a first world nation.
They honored the hustle,
the faith,
the gumption.

They sent invitations to all
their faculty colleagues and friends
from the university,
now living in tents
scattered through Europe.
The couple knew their fellow migrants,
in their community of untethered,
now untenured
“professors imeritui”,
(as the couple called themselves,)
would be impressed by Flint.
Such opulence!
Such opportunity!

They knew,
if humanly possible,
there would be
no
no-shows.