Here Comes Treble: A Reason To Celebrate
...In preparation, I spent hours in the kitchen on Friday, baking sausage rolls, cheese biscuits, cakes and shortbread, enough to feed the five thousand. What a glorious way to spend an afternoon. The whole house, and possibly the neighbourhood, was perfumed with the scent of fresh goodies, and my spirits rose with the fragrant steam...
Isabel Bradley organises the celebration of her mother's 91st birthday.
We’d insisted that Mom’s 91st birthday be celebrated with a ‘small’ party. Small, defined as ‘not as many people as last year’, which made the guest-list a little tricky to manage but we finally had everyone there who really mattered, sixteen people altogether.
In preparation, I spent hours in the kitchen on Friday, baking sausage rolls, cheese biscuits, cakes and shortbread, enough to feed the five thousand. What a glorious way to spend an afternoon. The whole house, and possibly the neighbourhood, was perfumed with the scent of fresh goodies, and my spirits rose with the fragrant steam.
On Saturday afternoon, Leon and I loaded the car with the fruits of Friday’s labour, and drove across to Mom’s retirement village, where the lounge had been set up for the party. Three white-decked trestle tables formed a central food station, which was only just long enough to hold all the eats, including bowls of crisps and chocolate-marshmallow Easter eggs. Cups and saucers, tea, coffee, milk and sugar were all supplied, and there was a separate side-table for cool-drinks for those who preferred them.
My cousin, Joyce, was the first to arrive. Friends of Mom’s from her working days as school secretary were among the guests: co-secretary Lorna and teacher Sue. My daughter, Diane, visiting from England, was there and my son Bergen and his girlfriend Jacqui. Jacqui and Bergen arrived late because Jacqui was ‘lost’ at the local shopping mall, her cell-phone not working. How lovely, I thought, to be ‘lost’ in a shopping mall, hopefully with a limitless credit-card. My nephew, Gareth, his wife Veronique, and their four year old daughter, Kendra were also there, and Mom’s younger, eighty-five-year-old brother, Uncle Frank and his wife Shirley.
Soon the room was filled with laughter and conversation, pots of hot water were brought in from the kitchen, and friends and family helped themselves to the feast. Mom’s plate was piled high, and though she doesn’t eat much as a rule, she enjoyed every morsel and asked for more!
The company was terrific, and there was a huge amount of laughter. With Mom being a phenomenal 91, everyone else seemed to feel particularly young and frisky. Sue turned to me and said that she’d just turned 60. “I couldn’t believe it, it’s such a big number… But then I realised that I couldn’t stop the process, so I might as well just relax and enjoy!”
“The alternative to ‘suffering’ the next birthday isn’t worth contemplating,” I agreed, “it’s like childbirth, there’s no going back!”
Joyce said, “Sue, I can’t believe you’re sixty already. We were all at school at various stages together, but you were a few years behind me. The trouble is, we feel the same inside, but everyone around us seems to be aging! People we were at school with go greyer and get wrinkles and paunches, and we think how old they’re looking. I mean, cousin Michael is beginning to look just like his dad, Uncle Donald, when he was in his sixties! And no matter how often we look in the mirror, we can’t see that we’re aging at exactly the same rate. I mean, no-one who’s younger than I am should be allowed to turn 60!” Her outrage wasn’t entirely tongue in cheek.
Sue turned to me. “Aren’t you lucky – you’ll just stay at the age you are for the rest of your life, no matter how many years go by.”
I didn’t mention it to the ‘girls’, but I’m hoping to turn a happy, healthy 60 in a year or few, and go on to 70, 80, 90…. My ambition is to learn to know my great-grandchildren, who haven’t even been imagined yet!
The discussion moved on. Sue said, “Isn’t it funny, though, how people ‘freeze’ in one’s memory? My dad will always be 73 to me, that’s when he died.” I agreed it would be difficult to imagine my father any older than the 83 he was when he left us.
Everyone enjoyed the short programme of flute and piano music that Susan and I played for Mom, even four-year-old Kendra.
Of course, we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Mom, and cheered her.
It was a lovely afternoon’s celebration.
Every birthday, from 1 to 91 and beyond, is a grand occasion: another year of life, love and laughter, and maybe a few tears, has been achieved, and the next is on its way.
No-one can guarantee from one day to the next that life will continue, but as long as it does, there is always reason to celebrate!
Until next time…. ‘here comes Treble!’
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by Isabel Bradley
