On Turning Sixty

My family threw a party to celebrate my sixtieth birthday. There are so many of us now, all with busy lives, they had to use Mother’s Day for the event so everyone could come. And come they did, representing four generations, those related by genetics and those grafted in by love, spanning ages from eighty-two to not-quite-ready-to-be-born. It was awe-inspiring for me, the guest of honor.

When we are all together sometimes I step back and watch what anyone else would label as refined chaos, but I shrewdly recognize as an art form. A well-crafted family made up of devoted, compassionate, loving, intelligent, caring and, above all else, prayerful individuals, is a thing of beauty. Of all the creative endeavors I have attempted, explored, produced and/or designed in my last six decades, nothing I could have devised could outshine this body of people I call family. Of course, I can’t take full credit for shaping this work of art but I can at least claim to have had a hand in the process. Just a small kick-start, anyway.

The pot-luck cuisine at our gatherings is semi-world famous. We could, in fact, feed a small third world country with the spreads we enjoy. Everyone knows that dessert is definitely my favorite part of a meal so, in deference to me, the guest of honor, the cakes, pies, brownies, éclairs and tarts were served as the first course, to the complete surprise, and delight, of the children. I was pleased to note they have finally learned that life is short and sometimes skipping ahead to dessert first can be a wise choice. After all, think about all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert tray.

After dessert we went downstairs to the screen porch and dived into the other foods. This is a space that has witnessed many feeding frenzies over the last nine years that we’ve lived here on the lake. Again, stepping back and observing, I could not, nor did I wish to, stem the swell of pride I felt for this group. What good people they are; generous and mindful for the greater good, lovers of truth, ever-learners, givers, witnesses to and for God’s amazing grace. Matthew 6:19-25 says "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." I can only feel deep sorrow for folks who think treasure is defined by material wealth, possessions or external appearances.

Once we were sated with food and we had regained decorum after one small, hardly worth noting, confetti fight, they presented to me, the guest of honor, my gifts. Olivia was recording a video as I unwrapped the pretty packages and oohed and ahhed over the lovely things that others had so meticulously and clearly chosen for me. The camera could not have captured, however, what I was thinking: Nothing is more valuable than time spent with loved-ones, time spent considering the welfare of others, time spent in selflessly looking outward instead of inward and the wisdom of Proverbs 11:25, "A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed."

The next stage of the celebration took us all back upstairs for a video presentation featuring a collage of photos encompassing as much of my life as was humanly possible to compact into twenty-minutes accompanied by perfectly chosen music. It was truly stunning to me. You think you are a little island in this life – others don’t really see you, not the “real” you, or genuinely care what you think or how you feel about things, what is meaningful, what matters to you. And then you watch deftly selected snap shots of your life pass before you on a screen in a video that completely exposes your story and you realize how interlaced we are–minds and hearts recording the minute bits and bites of ordinary everyday, the haphazard pieces of who we are all fitting somehow together into a single living organism.

Erma Bombeck said it so well, “The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.”

All I can say is that it is an exquisite moment to be able to be the guest of honor and drink in sixty years of profound blessings all in one big gulp. And I believe it to be one that everyone should experience at least once.