Celebrating 60 years
Mark K April 4th, 2008
Last week my parents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.
We planned a surprise party for them and my job was to invite their friends. My parents now live in a small city at the northern end of the Sacramento valley. They had previously lived in a two other towns, located farther down the valley, so I called their friends from those two places to invite them to attend.
Each time I called someone, the conversation went something like this:
Me: Hello. Is this Mrs. Jones?
Mrs. Jones: (in a suspicious voice) Yes?
Me: This is Mark K. I’m the son of Dr. and Mrs. K.
Mrs. Jones: (in a worried voice) Yes?
Me: We’re planning a surprise 60th anniversary party for my parents for two weeks from today and are hoping that you will be able to attend.
Mrs. Jones: (five second delay and then in a cheerful, decisive voice) We would love to come!
There was no “Let me check my calendar and get back with you”, “We’d really like to, but we’re so busy”, or “Let me juggle my schedule and see if I can fit it in.” Amazingly, there was usually not even a discussion between the husband and wife before making the commitment.
I suppose you could argue that things get simpler when you retire and the children have all grown up and moved away, but I think that it goes beyond this. There seemed to be an understanding among these folks - most of whom are in their 70’s and 80’s - that this is the way one responds when asked to honor and celebrate with dear friends.
The event was a huge success - my parents were totally taken by surprise. When they approached my brother’s backyard for what was supposed to be a small family gathering, they noticed a surprising number of people with white hair and knew that something was up. Then when they started to recognize faces of their old friends, they each, separately made their way through the crowd, greeting, hugging, kissing, always smiling.
Some of these people hadn’t lived near my parents for almost 50 years, but today it made no difference at all. They were asked to come and they came - and it was clear why these friendships had lasted through the years.
