60 Years

There were so many potential topics for this week's blog. Each one was deferred or dismissed for various reasons. (For instance, I'll write about creating better questions at a later date because my brain is still processing all I learned at Francine and Stephanie's excellent TC2 workshop last Friday.)

At the risk of getting too personal too often, today's blog post will be about the main event from this weekend: my parents' 60th wedding anniversary. I planned a surprise lunch for them at a local restaurant (thank you Mandarin Scarborough location!) and invited friends and family. Mom and Dad were very surprised and my Dad in particular was effusive in his thanks for arranging it all.

Mom and Dad on their wedding day - November 10, 1959

Mom and Dad - a more recent photo

The best gift that the attendees provided was their presence. It's so hard to arrange to see relatives and friends but I'm so grateful that the occasion - an anniversary party - was a joyous one. Too often, the only time I see some of these people is at a funeral. When we compared notes about the last time we had seen each other, they were at events like my parents' 50th anniversary (in 2009), Mom's 75th+1 birthday party (in 2012), or at the family reunion organized by my cousin Margaret the year my Uncle John died (in 2013). It seems like we were due for a get-together.

If these gatherings are so wonderful, then why don't they happen more regularly?
I think it's for a few reasons. It's challenging, with our busy lives, to arrange these meetings unless it's for a special occasion. It can be hard to coordinate schedules and takes a lot of organizing. Family and friends move away, and it may take Herculean efforts to travel to a central location. (My sister and brother-in-law flew all the way from Calgary for just the weekend so they could attend the anniversary celebration) These gatherings also depend on certain "social lynch-pins" to keep families together. When those unifying people die, it's hard to find someone with the same familial magnetism to reunite groups. It's also difficult to find locations and activities that will meet the needs of different generations of people. As it was, the room at the Mandarin was a little tight for maneuvering around to socialize at length.

I asked our guests to write a favourite memory related to my parents on sheets that will eventually form the basis of a commemorative album I'm compiling. Not everyone wrote something but those that did shared some great moments from the past that I myself had completely forgotten. You never know what banal activity for you is something special to others. The scrapbook album is an attempt to preserve some of those memories, which is super-important as my parents don't remember as much as they used to when they were younger.

Sixty years is a long time. A lot has happened to the pair of them since they first rescheduled their August wedding date because my father nearly died in a fire at the airport in their home country of British Guiana. (He actually got special permission to be released from the hospital to attend his own wedding in November. Remind me to relate the full story on here one day - it's a great tale of perspectives, perseverance, and media literacy.) They've had ups and downs but they are still together, with enough spirit to drive their children bonkers. I hope that many of you experience that kind of long-lasting love and devotion. May you have someone who looks at you the way my dad looks at my mom in this photo taken at the party.

Dad and Mom at the anniversary party