A wonderful day for me

A wonderful day for me!

I am officially made it in the 80-something age group now! I don't think there's any significance about it, most of my family members I know are all lived far beyond that. But as the upper life span for American men was once set at somewhere around 78, I am still happy that I made it beyond it and more.

Yesterday, my official birthday, was a memorable one since Tina posted a picture of Anna and I on Facebook that garnered a number of well wishing messages from other family and friends. That was rather unusual for me as I don't generally celebrate my birthdays. But I do remember some past birthdays in my life.

I am particularly remembering 30 years ago I was in Taipei visiting my parent when I was on my way to attend a conference in Japan. It wasn't planned but one of the days happened to be my 50th birthday on the lunar calendar. My Mom brought back a small cake, lighted a small candle, with my Dad seated there, Mom sang "Happy Birthday to my son!" and I blew out the candle. It was all unplanned, may be planned by God, that was so memorable and that was only once in my life time, but an important mile stone marked the occasion of my reaching the half centenarian mark. I can still recall all the details that day!

Thirty years before that, I had the only planned birthday celebration of my life. That was when I was reaching the two decade mark in life, still a junior in TaiDa. I don't remember who started the idea of doing a celebration. But Mom did all the cooking, I invited a few of my best friends in college, we had a great banquet at our house. Mom even bought a life chicken, Dad did the butchery, something we usually only do during the lunar new year time. Memories fading, other than the late David Yen, my best friend, I no longer remember who else were there now.

Other than these two memorable occasions, I really don't remember much about how any of the other birthdays were transpired. Many times that was just another working day! Well, what's birthday? just another day!