David’s “Family” at his 50th Birthday Party

On St Patty’s Day we celebrated my brother David’s 50th birthday.

About half of us were able to make it. Yes, believe it or not what you see here is only half of us! It was a wonderful day, a lovely event and people are talking about it. I hope that when everyone thinks of the day they will remember it as David’s birthday but I think that already the idea that it was David’s birthday is evaporating and people are really remembering it as a family reunion. That key here is that it was a memorable event because it was a family gathering with David included actually at the center of the gathering.

Back in the day — before mom and dad passed away — everyone used to come “home” for the holidays. Brothers and Sisters and their spouses and their children would come to the house and spend time there. There were so many of us that families would come in rotation. Even still, come they would. Now that our parents have passed away, we don’t have that family “hub” that we used to have. It occurs to me that for the majority of our family we have not seen each other in any major grouping since those days. And they were long ago — before 1994, 1996.

At the beginning of the party we took a moment of silence in quiet contemplation of all those who have passed. Our parents. Our brothers and sister. Our grandparents, aunts and uncles. Looking around the room the “little ones” who used to sit at the “children’s table” are all grown up with their own little ones. It was shocking to me that we are now the elders!.

My nephew Christopher set up music and a playlist with his iPad. He was the “DJ” for the event. I was standing next to him and he said something like  “I dont know anyone here. I’ll bet others don’t. Are you going to get people talking?” And so we began “calling” — getting the little kids to come up and answer questions like who can do spock fingers and other recessive gene traits. More than 50% of the people in the room have light colored eyes. 30% can do a clover leaf tongue. And the blonde spot at the back of the head is more prevalent than most let on.

The best part of the day of course is that David loved every minute of it. He loved being the center of attention!

He loved having people read to him… Several people read David his birthday cards…. He loved being the center of the photos, although his fave is with his girlfriend Gina. Every time David is looking away in the photo, follow his eyes and you can see that they are glued on Gina. He loved dancing with his brothers and sisters (and Gina!)

After Party!

And he loved the after party. The after dinner.

The night time remembering the party.

Wishing us all many more days like this.

Here’s to David Joseph, Happy Birthday, old man :-).