Class with wisdom deserves applause

Kyle Paxman of deserves a big round of applause.

I don’t know her, but she’s definitely classy and deserves one anyway.

This past Saturday, Paxman was supposed to get married. But six weeks before the wedding, she was presented with irrefutable evidence her boyfriend of four years was cheating on her. She called the wedding, planned for the Basin Harbor Club on Lake Champlain, in Vergennes, Vt., off, like any sane person would do, having found out one’s betrothed was not trustworthy. And there the story would normally end. Sad perhaps, but not the first time it’s happened in the world.

However, the reception, the block of rooms reserved for guests and other expenses were non-refundable, and Paxman’s mother, Patricia Carbee, who was footing the bill, was stuck with them. Paxman and Carbee decided to hold a party for 125 “beautiful, powerful, charismatic, and charitable women,” as a large green card in the club lobby put it.

Paxman turned her 180-guest wedding into a 125-guest charity event. The beneficiaries were the Vermont Children’s Aid Society and CARE USA, an international relief organization that aims to combat poverty by empowering women. Paxman and Carbee invited friends, family and coworkers, only some of whom were among the original invitees, to a four-course dinner reception and drinks, in hopes the guests would donate to the two charities.

After the event, mother and daughter were headed to Tahiti for what would have been Paxman’s honeymoon.

“I don’t feel jilted,” Paxman is quoted as telling the press. “I feel strong, empowered, moving on.”

And that’s the point. In a world where runaway brides and bridezillas dominate the wedding media stories, it’s just so nice to see someone with true class get the attention for a change. Paxman and Carbee even declined to name the unfaithful fiancé to the media, though I’m sure it was sorely tempting.

But that would have been counterproductive to Paxman’s purpose for the event— “How do you turn something so awful around?” Paxman asked. “We needed to turn this into something positive and start the healing process,” she told the New York Times.

Positive it was. There’s no word yet on how much Paxman raised for the two charities, but money is only part of the picture.
We’ll never know, but how many women, I wonder who’ve heard Paxman’s story will be affected? How many will decide to make a better choice over a bad one? Will any come to a difficult point in life sometime in the future, and decide to find the high road, to make lemons out of lemonade?

Paxman’s unnamed fiancé was probably flabbergasted (at least I hope he was). It’s not everyday one’s fiancé breaks off wedding plans only to end up on network news, as a heroine, no less. He got a lesson he deserved, no doubt.

And Paxman? She’s in Tahiti with her mother and is undoubtedly much better off in more ways than one.

Male or female, we should all be so wise and lucky.

(Originally published in The Easton News, September 14, 2006)