The Joyful Living Party

Don's 'Ten Years of Joyful Living' party was a week ago today. The flowers that one guest brought and the others we had scattered around the house are fading but the glow of happiness is still hanging around. It's been ten years since his stroke and even with all my husband's physical issues, he's still happy to have beaten the prognosis of two neurologists that he'd be a vegetable for the rest of his life.

Every survivor of a major health crisis should have a 'Thank God I'm Alive' type party. It gives people an excuse to tell you how important you've been in their lives and/or it gives your guests a chance to stop and be thankful for their own good health or for having overcome obstacles in their own lives. We heard a lot stories like that. And people shared their memories of happy times spurred on by old photographs they brought. The party was filled with laughter from start to finish. One good friend brought a CD he'd made of music that was representative of hunting trips he, Don and another friend had taken out West. We also have a new metal sculpture of a crane standing next to our cattail bog where he can remind us every morning that it's great to be alive.

I told Don if he ever wants another party it's going to be catered in a restaurant. It was a lot of work to throw a party for 41 people all by myself and I'm just not a person with a lot of kitchen or party planning skills. The one thing I didn't worry about at all---the individual cakes I'd ordered and paid a fortune for---turned out to be the only part of the party that I was disappointed in. They looked great but were more frosting than cake inside. But even that became symbolic of the past ten years because in the aftermath of anything that goes wrong in life, you've got to let go of the little stuff and concentrate on what went right, what is really important in life. And in this case, too sweet cake is 'little stuff' compared to the people who cared enough to make time in their busy lives to come celebrate Don's life. That's huge and we're grateful for that.

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