A Celebration

I crashed a party yesterday evening.  A good friend, in from California for about 48 hours to celebrate his mom's birthday, asked if we could get together for a visit.  When we realized that the tight schedule wouldn't allow even a quick visit apart from the several planned birthday events, I asked if I could join in for the birthday celebration.  I know his mom and some of her friends, so it wasn't stretching things to far.  And what a party.  The gathering of four elderly ladies and my friend was a very special time.  The oldest member of the party was 101 and going strong - - totally alert, engaged in the party.  At a couple of points when asked how she was doing she said she was fine and was listening.  As always when surrounded by people much older than myself, I felt, at age 59, like a kid again, entertaining the grown ups with stories intended to generate big laughs.  We dined on cocktails and pizza - - very exceptionally good pizza - - the favorite food of the 90 year old birthday girl, who mentioned that no one had ever crashed one of her parties - - I was the first to do so.  We engaged in 'who do you know' and discovered that we have many friends in common.  The 101 year old guest grew up in a rural Virginia town and knew well a man I'd met through a work project.  Another guest turned out to be the mother of another acquaintance.  And another guest talked of her late husband and her memory of him and me serving on a church committee many years ago.  More than three hours flew by and eventually the 101 year old had to call it a night.  She set off in her very spiffy walker with gears and brakes (like a racing bike) to head back to assisted living - - 'a long walk away' according to the birthday girl.  It was a very special way to spend time with my friend.  I think he and I both felt much younger by the end of the evening.

Unfinished Business

I love Saturdays.  I begin with a long list of things I want to get done in a day.  And sometimes something compels me that's not on the list.  This morning I was reading a piece in The New Yorker magazine about dogs and their relationship with humans.  Suddenly, I knew it was the time to begin work on some old business that I had been putting on the back burner for 13 years - - the ashes of a a beloved dog who died in 1998.  More recently acquired were the ashes of another wonderful dog who died last fall.  Leading up to my epiphany this morning, a few weeks ago I hatched a plan for both mounds of ashes - - to take them to the beach and commit them to the sea, with or without the witness of my husband and our grown children who are planning to vacation with us at the beach later this month.  As I read the article about dogs and man, I suddenly realized that my plan for the ashes needed to include a distribution strategy.  The list, I thought, what's on today's Saturday list?  Planting a couple of pots of a perennial thistle-like plant would be the perfect occasion at which to allocate some of the ashes.  I located the 13 year old box of yellow dog's ashes, and the beautiful urn of brown dog's ashes and headed out to the dog yard behind our house.  This is a lovely area enclosed with a white picket fence and lovingly planted with a variety of blooming shrubs, trees and flowers, where the dogs poop and pee.  We're down to only one dog now, another yellow dog who was the sidekick of the big brown dog.  I opened up both containers of ashes, looked for recognizable evidence of either dog (couldn't find any) and poured about a cup of each dog's ashes into two zip lock bags.  I marked one for the beach committal and one to take back to Baton Rouge, LA, where both dogs lived with us for a time when we lived there.  I put both bags of mixed ashes (actually looking each like a little terrarium of two different hues of ash in each bag) and  I scoped out the best spot for the two perennial pots of thistles plus ashes and commenced to digging.  Mixing ash with potting soil and topsoil I planted the perennials and marked them wtih a huge shell from a NC beach that brown dog liked to pee on.  It's a nice feeling helping those ashes move on beyond storage on a shelf.  I'm ready now for the beach service which I know will be much more difficult when the whole family gathers to recall how we loved those dogs like a sister and a brother.  Thanks be to God for hearts soft enough to weep over the passing of a dog and big enough to go on.