Before my father died early this summer, there was a photo he displayed prominently in his room at the assisted-living facility. Taken in our living room last fall, it shows our daughter radiating a joy that people continue to remark on. "She looks so beautiful," they often add. Indeed, supreme happiness will do that to a body.

Beside her, gazing back at my photographer husband with a sweet and soul-baring smile, cheek pressed tenderly against Vanessa's hair, is Tim, who'll become our son-in-law this month.

Everyone who entered my father's room was greeted by these two beaming faces. As visitors and caregivers began visualizing a good passing for my dad, they probably began holding in their minds an image of this very happy-looking couple, too. Endings and beginnings often manifest in just this coinciding way.

My father, as those leaving this world need to do, continued to withdraw from it in many ways over those last months. But like a giant sticky note you place somewhere to remember something important, he kept this photograph where he and everyone could see it, and continually called attention to it if you somehow managed to miss its insistent little ray of light. No matter how absorbed he may have been in life's final tasks, my dad kept an eye trained on his granddaughter's future happiness.

I can't remember when our own little household didn't hold an ever-present consciousness of marriage in a very everyday, benevolent way. Each of our children, even when very small, would make matter-of-fact references to their future partners, and have continued this practice as young adults.

Now I know this next assertion will sound especially strange, but whenever they did this, it seemed as though I could feel the presence of that future family member, and that future family. That's the same way I felt when I first heard my son-in-law's voice on the phone, which happened to occur before our daughter had gotten to know him particularly well. I had that sensation of, "Well, there you are. I had a feeling you'd be along soon."

Describing marriage as the foundation of a unified society, Baha'u'llah called it "a fortress for well-being and salvation." The Baha'i writings describe that the two parties in a marriage, like two wings of a bird, "must become fully united both spiritually and physically, so that they may attain eternal union throughout all the worlds of God, and improve the spiritual life of each other." So that theirs may be a good flight together, you might say.

Couples are encouraged to strive to become "loving companions and comrades and at one with each other for time and eternity," and, before they enter into marriage, they're advised to "exercise the utmost care and become acquainted with each other's character."

Once they've chosen their partner — a choice that Baha'i teachings say belongs solely to them — there are three requirements for a Baha'i marriage. The first is that each party obtains the parents' approval of the marriage. There is no age restriction on this teaching, which means that when my friend Martin wanted to marry again, he still needed the blessing of his nearly 90-year-old mother. In addition to being a means by which parents might assist and guide the couple, this requirement helps preserve unity within both the marriage and the extended family. It also serves to honor one's parents, and the essential spiritual bond between child and parent.

Another requirement for Baha'i marriage is the presence of two witnesses alongside the couple as they fulfill the third simple requirement, speaking the verse: "We will all, verily, abide by the will of God."

This vow makes the marriage a contract of three parties. And that contract extends beyond the lives of the couple, as my husband and I came to recognize on the day we said our own vows.

"I realized," he told me afterward, "that when I said that, I was referring to the two of us, plus everyone there with us to support our marriage, and our future children."

And indeed, the spiritual resonance of that vow has been with us all ever since, even in the sound of my son-in-law's voice that first time I heard it.

There are some things we cannot know or understand without the passing of time, and the accumulation of experience, as well as reflection on that experience. What I feel more deeply each day is that the commitment of my parents' marriage, the fortress for well-being they sought to forge, and the one my husband and I have endeavored to fashion, resonates in our children's lives now like that vow we spoke 28 years ago.

Along with that photo of Vanessa and Tim, my father also kept a calendar on which he continued to mark a few very significant dates right up until the last three weeks of his life. He didn't have a chance to note our daughter's wedding date, but I know it's on his calendar now. I suspect he may have known it even before she did, since the big proposal originated on Father's Day, shortly after he died. I'm guessing that he's also tickled that his granddaughter's future father-in-law is a former military career officer, just as he was.

By virtue of that very fact, my father was early for absolutely every event he ever attended — which meant that you were early right along with him. Really early.

Every time I feel a little nervous about the details of the big day, I get an image of him standing beside my mother in something like their own version of that photograph of the new happy couple. I know they'll be there, too - in plenty of time - and I can hear their reassurance: "Don't worry, Honey. Everything will be just fine. We will all, verily, abide by the will of God."

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Phyllis Edgerly Ring, mother of two, is a writer and editor. Her current book project addresses how adults can recognize and nurture children's spiritual nature. She is a former program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine, and has been a member of the Baha'i Faith for more than 30 years. Email her at {email columns@bahai.us}columns@bahai.us{/email}. See the website of the Baha'is of the United States for more information. © Copyright 2007 by Phyllis Edgerly Ring.