Many years ago, my mother told me that we criticize the living and eulogize the dead, and given that human tendency, she believed in the importance of celebrating the limited time we have on earth.  My older brother, Benj, and I have thrown some wonderful parties in the past.  Inasmuch as the world suffered the plight of the Covid virus, by necessity I had to bring in my 75^th birthday with a quiet romantic dinner with my wife, Lisa.

Suddenly, I found myself soon to turn 80, a milestone event in anyone’s life that has made it that far.  Knowing that this could be one of the last big celebratory events in my life, I went all out for it.  I invited my family, friends of old and new from near and afar to celebrate this occasion.  With the assistance of my wife, Lisa, we planned to have the event at the aquarium in Long Beach.  My roommates from college and relatives were invited to have dinner prior to the big event on Sunday.  Lisa prepared a slide show of our past travels that included many of those I invited to the aquarium.  I spent the greater part of a day writing brief summaries of each of my guests that I hoped would capture not only my relationship with them, but also would highlight some defining characteristic of that person.  I wanted to stay away from the negative focusing on my positive memories of everyone.

A friend of Lisa told both of us if she had known in advance that I would talk about everyone at the party, (and there were 90 people there), she would have thought it would be extremely boring listening to it.  But, on the contrary, she indicated that the event sped by and that she thoroughly enjoyed it.

I also planned to visit the family and their children with whom I had stayed in Mexico in 1983 and 1993.  During those times, I had stayed with the parents of three sons and a married daughter, who lived in Guadalajara.  The sons, all about 10 to 15 years younger than I, became close friends, one of them Gonzo, was fluent in English so he would correct my grammar when I made a mistake while speaking Spanish.

Now all but Gonzo was married and so I invited their children with Connie, their older sister, and her daughter to come to dinner with Lisa, Rosie, and me.  Rosie, a friend of mine, who I met in 1990, while working in a bilingual clinic, was born in Mexico. Lisa had become friendly with Rosie, so she asked me to invite her to come with us as her translator.   Lisa knew I would be speaking in Spanish with the family, many of whom did not speak any English, so she said that she would feel more included in the company of Rosie.

For the dinner, I had written a brief essay describing my experience and the good memories I had of my friends’ parents.  While staying with their parents, I had learned the expression:  Mi casa es tu casa that translates literally to my home is your home.  It is a cordiality that Mexicans often show to others and, in my case, I really felt the truth in that saying.  I also recalled the wonderful home-made meals made that I joyfully devoured.   After I had left, the sons had told me their parents thought of me as an adopted American brother.

When it was time for dessert and with some cake being served, everyone spontaneously sang feliz cumpleanos to me.  I was able to talk to many of the children of my friends and, before we knew it, the restaurant was closing as it was after midnight.  It was a wonderful week of celebration and both my American and Mexican friends and family complimented me on their experience in anointing me to that of an octogenarian.