Zen Prayer Read by Elizabeth's Uncle Walter I bless my breath   because it lets me live. I bless my life   because it is a gift whose origin I will never understand. I bless my parents   because they have formed so much of my soul. I bless my children, still to be born   because they will give me the gift of helping to form their souls. I bless the one who loves me   because she makes me so much more than myself. And I bless the one who loves me with my love   Because, by doing so, we two become one.

Andres's Tio Renato's Speech Dear Elizabeth and Dear Andres: I was deeply touched and honored when you asked me to speak at your wedding. The formulation of my duties "just say what you want". With this clear objective in minding and thank you for the trust implied, I have been thinking a lot about the great step you are taking today. In Chile, the justice of peace reminds us that marriage is a solemn act through which two people, by their own free will, commit to love and serve each other for the rest of their lives. The gathering of this community of family and friends from remote places is recognition of this solemnity, we don't want to miss the important moments in the lives of our loved ones. This is the third marriage in our family to be held in these northern lands. My parents were married in Pittsburgh during the forties and Monica and Kevin here in Seattle during the eighties. Judging from the results this is a good omen, but as you know omens are not enough, especially in times where the institution of marriage is going through dire straits. So I looked around in our own intimate family tradition, searching for lessons in good marital life and my thoughts turned to my mother's smile. Unfortunately, Andres' grandmother is not here, she is far away wanting to be here, the inevitable calamities of old age interrupted her wishes so she is cheering from Santiago being Andres her first grandchild. I will do my best to bring her here among us. Let me introduce to the one and only Pepa, our lady of the enthusiasm for living. Her smile has become to me like a punctuation mark inviting to be aware of the good life. The sunsets at the family farm in Quiriquine, sunsets at Providencia, flowers everywhere, the funny ways we all are, the stories of grandchildren are for her opportunities of concrete happiness that wash away the miseries of living in our valley of tears. I recognize in these occasions an artisan's committment to gather subtle threads to build a sturdy rope to tie souls together. Images such as a spark, a tiny droplet of water, a shooting star, a passing glance, and humor could be elements of her architecture of life's celebration. This perspective was my mother's personal gift to my father's happy marriage. I think there may be a metaphor in rowing together. I have never touched an oar, but I can imagine the early sun kissing the water as a celebration of being a hard working member of an eight. Maybe a happy marriage is related to that feeling. It may not be evident but I am speaking of discipline, of a sustained effort to reveal love by opening and sharing your innocence. The necessary discipline to continuously build a binding strength that will aid you when events don't match your expectations, when wisdom will seem to avoid your path and you are not capable of getting in touch with the love that brought you here. It requires humor to accept and change our funny, sometimes ridiculous and weird limitations for becoming good partners. This ability is not obstained only through putting our rational intelligence to work; sometimes a gentle nudge does much more than a discourse, than anexplanation. I think that my mother brought into her marriage the capcity to detect and shore almost invisible, but ever present, whirlpools of loving energy. She would say that the enemy of magic is taking us much too seriously. We bring from Chile many blessings from my mother. I hope her gentle strength may become a guidling light for both of you.

Elizabeth's Dad's Speech Good evening. We would like to welcome all of you again to this super event and thank you for sharing it with this great young couple and their families. I hope you leave here today with only great memories of this day. As I was trying to think of a few words to relate my feelings toward Elizabeth and Andres today, the best way I could think of was to relate this to memories we have. I am sure that all of you have memories of these two young people that go back a very long way and that these memories are, for the most part, happy ones. As least for one member of this couple, my memories also go back a long way. In fact, I can remember a long, long time ago in a place far, far away; Elizabeth's mom and I had a rather scary ride, early one morning, from East Glennville to Niskayuna. When we arrived at Bellevue hospital, we started our first, of what would turn out to be many, long waits for Elizabeth's arrival. However, when she finally did show up, it was an earth shattering event and as nurse Katie placed this bundle of joy on Mary's stomach, the only earth shattering statement I could utter was . Isn't she neat Hon, Isn't she neat!! Well from that day in early Feb. 1977, she did turn out to be really neat. Some of my most vivid memories of Beth's early life were from her desire to dress-up. From crawling about our little Herrick Dr. house dressing up our dog Herman in my dirty tee shirts until latter in her young life when she was dressed up as a young Red Sox player on her first Halloween experience. When she could dress herself, she did so in rather unique outfits--like a super women outfit with a football helmet trying to look really tough -- one of your favorites. The early dress up days, to the start of her school years, moved very rapidly. Some of the nice school memories started on the 'First Day of School', from Mom's demands for an official photo in front of the front door to meeting the school bus at the end of Budd Terr. and the lunches at Ground Round as both kids competed for conversation time to tell their stories about that first day at school. As Elizabeth grew up, there were many wonderful and memorable experiences. Our summer trips to the Cape had many of the best of these. Our early morning walks on the beach, where Liz would do cart wheels in the sand, to our trips to Fenway to watch the Red Sox and to get raw oysters at Ye Olde Oyster House. Athletics were always an important part of Elizabeth's life and skiing played a major role in the winter activities. This all started with the Sat. morning ski lessons at Maple Ridge (all 300 vertical feet). Some of the early ski memories evolved around Uncle Ralf's yearly ski visits and the one weekend day when Liz or Jen were allowed to ski with the grown-ups. However, this was not always positive since Ralf took Liz skiing through the woods at Jiminy Peak for the first time and she almost killed me with this trick later in our ski lives. Our early ski trips to the west were always packed with memories--the multi days of continuous snow at Taos (where the sun was always out on top)--to our joint ski trip to Salt Lake and her first experiences at Alta and Snowbird. However, this was also Liz's downfall in this sport since she learned that she would never be able to keep up with her Dad on the slopes. So, she had to take up a new sport and Liz took this up with a passion--rowing. There are so many crew memories, through her high school and college career, that we could spend days recounting them. However, one of the most vivid occurred in Worchester, Mass in the spring of '99 when William Smith became the first Division III team to win the Champions Title. Ralf and I were standing at the finish line when they edged out the University of NH to win the title. Their coach, Mr. Joy -- in one of his rare display of emotions -- came up behind us and hugged me and said just keep saying 'They did it -- they did it -- they won!!' What a fitting memory for this great group of women and for the coach who gave so much of himself to this team and to our daughter--we are forever thankful for this. These were all great and good memories. However, like everything there had to be some not so nice memories--the worst one I can remember was when that little black Nissan Altima, packed with all of Lizzie's stuff and Althea beside her went down our driveway on the way to the University of Washington. I think at that time Mary and I both knew that that little car and Liz would not be making a return trip up our driveway and that we had lost her for good to the great NW. However, if we had to lose her to any place, I suppose this was not too bad -- at least the way it turned out. None of us would be here today sharing this wonderful event if it had not been for that bad memory. Our memories of Andres are, of course, not nearly as extensive but I would like to share one of his characteristics with you -- he is one really neat and kind person. This, onto itself, is OK but more importantly, he and has been extremely nice to our little Lizzie and that is very important to Mary & me. However, I don't want to give Andres to much credit for this characteristic, for those of you who have had the chance to met his super nice Mother and great family, I'm sure you realize that this is a inherited trait. Therefore, I would like to propose this toast to a super couple and to all the great memories we have shared with Elizabeth and I am sure many of you have shared with Andres. We are looking forward to many future memories and we are sure that they will be only good ones. Please join Mary and me in wishing them our best.

Elizabeth's Coach Jim Joy's Speech Elizabeth--multum in parvo--much in little. I feel honored to speak on behalf of Elizabeth tonight, especially in this company of family and good friends. We worked intensely together at Hobart-William Smith for 4 yeras, so I am very familiar with her values and strength of character. In particular, I would emphasize her courage and on this subject, Mother Teresa's words are helpful: "To have courage for whatever comes in life--everything lies in that." An early and significant indication of Elizabeth's fortitude occured in her first year at William Smith, when during a winter snow game for cross-training she collided with a 230 lb Hobart male. Her right knee was seriously injured and Elizabeth was carried from the field in great pain. In the medical room, Elizabeth rejected the trainer's advice to have an operation to repair the knee. She vowed to do the rehabilitation and secure a seat in the women's championship crew and she did both. Many of her HWS teammates from thos championship years are here tonight. After completing her first year, I forgot about this injury until her senior year, when I applied a significant amount of pressure to the knee during an ergometer session. Imeediately, she cried out and I realized that she had performed in spite of the pain: for four years she had been a stoic. Remeber every day for a small athlete is a struggle. Elizabeth had to work harder and longer than her peers. Many times she was mistaken for the coxswain. But make no mistake: she is a great spirit and a giant of a woman. Just as evident as her love and committment to rowing, Elizabeth has found her "real love" in Andres. In the words of philosopher Ken Wilber, "Real love makes you totally vulnerable and open; real love will take you far beyond you both." Elizabeth, do you recall, at HWS, the weekly handouts of readings on various subjects? Well, here are 3 larger readings that you will not find on Oprah's Book List: The Path by Prof Chet Raymo Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin and Harlan Hubbard by Wendell Berry Berry describes the beautiful, cultured and Thoreauian life of Harlan and Anna Hubbard--a life of 40 years together. Theirs was a simple path but lived with complexity of mind and of knowledge, and lived with courage and compassion. This book is a wonderful exposition of their "real love" of life and for each other. We recognize your real love for each other and you have our deep felt congratultaions and best wishes.