Mother of the groom: One of those moments

I'm keeping a list of moments that have the capacity to restore, in some small measure, my faith in how things are supposed to be.

It's getting longer all the time, with things like:

The wonder-filled smile of parents who have just heard their baby laugh for the first time.

The cautious jubilation of a child who has just mastered the fine art of riding a bike.

Two faithful friends enjoying a game of chess, as if it doesn't matter who wins as long as they play together.

A cool fall day and a walk to enjoy it in.

An April ramble down Sugar Ridge Road in Bristol, Texas when the bluebonnets are in full bloom.

A sweet Texas porch with a rocker.

The smoky tang of really great barbecue.

The feel of a really good book when you turn the page in expectation.

The swing of a tassel turned to the other side of the mortarboard at graduation.

Recently, I added a new moment to the list.

When a serendipitous double rainbow briefly claimed the sky over The Oaks on Aug. 10 like a benediction, a couple hundred wedding guests rushed to the massive plate glass windows of the historic Maryland country inn.

Photographers Brian and Rebecca Palmer knew what to do. They hustled the bride and groom out to the riverside grounds of the inn where Fay Wray and Gary Cooper stayed while making the last silent movie.

"We've never had a rainbow," Rebecca Palmer said later.

The groom was my son, and the pictures of him with new wife Megh under the arc that curves to form a circle in the reflection on the Miles River are so lovely they appear to have been Photoshopped.

Irish heritage runs deep in both the newlyweds' families, so it would be easy enough to draw the analogy that the pair had found love's gold at the end of the rainbow.

However, seeing them there, two lovely young people, an engineer and a teacher, their masters degrees behind them and their lives together ahead of them and their hearts openly brimming with newly-wedded bliss and love, at the risk of getting mushy and even completely maudlin, I make a mor e spiritual connection.

I remember some of the challenging places this young man has been, in particular. Our family has stories from his youth that would curl your hair – although the one about the six months he spent in a body cast after a go-cart accident comes to mind first, there are others. A number of them.

I see him, and her, and that rainbow, and I think of all the things I wish for them, and the things that have already come true.

It's my theory that the despondency we see in so many youth today comes from our failure as the adults in their lives to tell them what we've come through. Because they don't know – and we do – that the sun will come out tomorrow, like the song from the Broadway musical 'Annie' says. That there's a rainbow after the rain. That, like the Pink Martini song, 'Hang On Little Tomatoe!' says, it's important to dig in and hold on determinedly. That time heals all wounds, and all good things come to those who wait (and work.)

It's my observation that these are lessons we need to remaster, again and again, through life's rainshowers. Because the rains will come, oh yes they will – and they fall on everyone, sooner or later.

But for some reason, when I look at that extraordinary wedding picture that's now so dear to me, I'm reminded of the rainbow as a symbol of God's promise to Noah, and then to what English missionary William Carey said over 150 years ago.

"The future's as bright as the promises of God."

It's just one of those moments, I guess.

The Class Menagerie: Delinda Ruffino's just a country girl, at heart

BRISTOL — When Delinda Ruffino moved to Bristol, she realized a life-long dream: Some 29 acres for her horses to play on – and a little miniature horse to remind her of the importance of life’s little things.

“My dream has always been to live on acreage with animals and to have horses on the property ... I’ve always wanted miniature horses, and I even threatened to get them in Lancaster and hide them behind my tall fence,” she said with a chuckle.

Delinda and Carlos Ruffino and their children, Michaella, now 19, and Robert, 17, relocated to Bristol three years ago from Lancaster, where Delinda owned the shop, Delinda Doolittle’s On the Square.

Once she found her Sugar Ridge paradise, Ruffino began to populate it – a miniature horse here, a miniature Zebu cow there.

Little goats, pale-eyed with velvety noses, curious and infinitely nibbly, that will munch on a pant leg or a lock of hair. They are miniature Nigerian goats, technically milk goats.

She has a rooster, and seven hens to lay a steady stream of fresh, fresh eggs. Then there’s Max the Cat. A long-haired tabby, he’s big-boned, even by Maine Coon cat standards, tipping the scale at 23 pounds and as long in the torso as his mistress.

The Ruffino dogs include two dachshunds, a chocolate lab, a Great Pyrenees watchdog and a cowdog cross.

“I had my own little private petting zoo,” she said.

Without unlimited room to branch out, she had no interest in breeding the animals – and they seemed to get along with each other in a sort of peaceable kingdom.

But something was missing.“I didn’t buy them to procreate, like in the Bible - that was God’s idea,” she said with a smile. “But I realized that the animals liked to be with their own kind. I noticed they were kind of lonely.”

She got another miniature cow to hang out with Charlie, the diminutive Zebu. “They were like instant buddies, and they’d go together everywhere,” she recalled. “I got another donkey, and sure enough, the donkeys hung out together. I had the one miniature horse, then I got him a friend. They really like to be with each other. I guess it’s kind of a no-brainer. They had seemed fine without them, but it’s sweet to see them roaming the pastures together,” Ruffino said.

If the resulting configuration of animals tends to resemble something of a land-based ark, Delinda Ruffino has done her job by finding her animals running buddies.

“They all really do like to be with their own kind,” she said.

The Ruffino’s 29 acres overlook the rolling hills of Bristol, where they have become part of the local constellation of neighbors.

“Sugar Ridge is the prettiest road I’ve seen in North Texas – for sure in Ellis and Dallas Counties,” she said. “And the neighbors are just amazing. I have a handful of friends on this remote road, but there’s a real strong community feeling. And think of it, there are people who live in suburbs, 10 feet from each other, and they don’t know their neighbors. They never get together with them,” she said.

Together with three of her fellow Sugar Ridge equestriennes, Delinda Ruffino’s a member of the Polka Cowgirls, an equestrian group that decorates their horses as living floats for area parades.

It’s all far from the bustling world she once knew. Raised in Houston, Delinda had an international modeling career that began in New York, taking her to the West Coast and then Europe and points east – including Germany, Italy, Paris and Tokyo – before landing her in Dallas in 1984.“ Traveling was amazing, it was like an education, and it was my school,” she recalled.

She stayed in Dallas, working as a model’s agent for an agency and then working at an agency representing makeup artists and stylists for print and TV gigs.

In 1988, she got married, she got pregnant – she got retired.

An aspiring artist, she’s turning the pool house into an art studio. She favors a break from the traditional, preferring impressionistic and expressionistic design. Her whimsical works are frequently vividly hued, done in a variety of media, pastels, pen, watercolor and her favorite, multi-media collage.

She’s active with the Ennis Garden Club, and with her church in DeSoto. And the drama training she got years ago? Finally, it’s found a home as well. She has appeared in three Neil Simon plays at the Ennis Public Theatre, and she’s an avid supporter of the theater as well.“I’ve done three plays with Bill Rhoten – I really love that theater,” she said. “I’d love to do at least one a year.”