Intimate Celebrations

Nothing announces a community's togetherness as well as a celebration. Some celebrations exalt national or historical events. Some grew out of religious holy days. But sometimes it is the intimate celebrations that bring the more grander occasions into better focus. Recently, I have been inspired to concentrate my comments on world events and issues of national prominence. It is time now to recall that communities are still the culmination of intimate interactions between one member with another.

The most intimate members would be family - parent/child; intra-sibling; extended family; closest friends; and, of course, husband and wife. The last few months have been rife with these especially intimate celebrations among my family and closest friends.

The first was the engagement of my oldest daughter. She has had a bit of a roller coaster ride with her past relationships and we each feel an extra drop of joy that she has found the joy of finding a truly wonderful life partner. I am looking forward to the traditional Italian Christmas Eve feast that her future in-laws invited us to as a great way to celebrate the blossoming togetherness of our two families.

Not long after the engagement announcement my mother passed away. I mentioned in a past post how she had given me life twice - first in birth, and second when she staunched the bleeding of a near fatal belly wound when I was three. As with so many of life events, her death brought together friends and family to remember, mourn, and then celebrate her contributions to our lives. We all had lunch together after her burial. She had over eighty good years that our intimate reunion huddles could smile about.

Now I have just returned from a week on the west coast of Florida for a celebration of togetherness. This week, like the engagement Italian feast to come and my mother's passing, was not a grand affair. Nothing patriotic. Nothing Biblical. Just togetherness.

Three graduates of the last graduating class of Kings County Hospital Nursing School, with husbands in tow, reunited for few days of friendship. The inspiration for this trip was the tragedy of Alzheimer's Disease. One of the three 50-something women is diminishing. Or, her mental capabilities are diminishing. The days we spent together showed that her heart and soul were intact, which sort of raised the sense of tragedy. For Rosie still enjoyed the celebration. She could still dance. She could still sing. She still smiled and laughed. And her husband David could laugh right along with her. They could accept a short respite from their trials because of the community we established over thirty tears ago. A community that was able to pick right up where we left off even though we six hadn't sat together for decades.

It was like riding a bicycle.