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The Day After
Elita Sohmer Clayman
We went to a great party yesterday in Northern Virginia. My
two youngest grandchildren’s birthday party. It was all you
can eat Chinese buffet and the most delightful and plentiful
buffet I have ever seen.
It was fun seeing the other side of the family and eating
and gorging and having a pleasant and happy time. No one
tries to one up another as happens many times at American
parties. These people are Asians and are my
daughter-in-law’s family and so it is our family now too. No
one shows up in fancy clothes or uppity attitudes. No one is
there to brag other than to show off the children or
grandchildren that are present there. No one has to cook or
clean the house before the arrival of the guests.
Everyone there is happy to be there and grateful that they
are there. Everyone is delighted to be sharing in this event
that is important not only to the three year old Ethan or
his one year old sister Ava who are sharing this party for
their birthdays in August. Ethan is well behaved and
delighted to have a party and Ava is acting like a little
mensh (good, sweet and loving) and after having sampled some
Asian food that Mommie fed her is munching happily on
Cheerios. A good commercial for plain Cheerios because
little ones enjoy them especially at restaurants while the
others are eating the excellent food.
Everyone there is going to fill their tummy to the limit and
when they drive home all filled up with various foods; they
will wonder why they ate too much and be now reaching for
the bottle of Tums. We are all thrilled to be related to
these two little darlings, us and the other grandparents and
an assorted group of aunties and uncles and one great auntie
All are one and one is all because we all are there for the
same blessing. We are related to these children and their
parents one way or the other. In my case, this is my baby
and these are his babies. My baby is an attorney and a CPA
and even though he is forty-three now, he will always be my
baby. He is my Jeffrey, the father
of Ava and Ethan.
From one person-me who joined with my husband Jerry, then my
daughter and her husband and her two teenagers to my son and
his wife and these two birthday celebrants. We are seniors
now, my husband and I and the two older boys are teens, age
sixteen and thirteen so it is a blessing at this moment in
our senior mode to have young grandchildren ages one and
three. It is our gift, our love and and our good luck at
this point in our lives.
So eating at this buffet honoring both of their August
births is surely a prediction of our future and our lasting
happiness at this senior age. Even though seniors in my
mom’s time were considered old and aged and sickly and on
their way out, we new seniors are considered more positive,
more healthy, more invigorated and more knowledgeable and
even younger in heart. We can teach our young grandchildren
and even teen ones too little things of the past and this
enhances their lives by knowing what was then and how things
differ now.
So the Chinese buffet of extensive pans of food and
delicacies and desserts and fruits and anything wonderful in
the food line was only part of the event. The pleasure of
being there and witnessing the blowing out of the candles on
the cake by the three year old and the wonder and happiness
on his face were just as important as the moment could make
it.
This event is a melting pot of two families, one Asian, one
Caucasian, one of the Catholic faith and the other one of
the Jewish faith. This is America 2008 and this is the way
things are now and that is one of the positive blending of
two cultures, two families and two religions.
These beautiful young children Ava and Ethan will be the
beneficiaries of the two aspects of their combined heritage
and will and are blessed in the unity.
I always insert dancing in my articles and I can do so here
too. When we as seniors or soon to be seniors take up
dancing we blend into our lives the component and ingredient
of a hobby that is beneficial to our health and soul. We
meld together one culture of everyday living, working, being
and doing all the necessary things we need to do to survive.
When we decide to take up dancing we are inserting in that
daily life another aspect of living, something that is
exciting, and hard to learn. By excelling in it we create
another melting pot of two different lives. One where we are
us working and living and the other where we are doing a
specialty diversion in our leisure time and we are using our
brain to accomplish this feat for our feet, our arms and
mostly for our mind.
When our minds are active and happy and still learning, then
we have blended good times with educational thoughts. There
is a saying that learning is a companion on a journey to a
strange country and is an inexhaustible strength. We seniors
have this strength and we are proud to exhibit it whenever
we can. This is not a strange country we have found, this is
ours because of our dancing we are in new territory in our
same location.
So the melding of my two families of my half Asian
grandchildren can be said is like ballroom dancing for
seniors. We merge, mix and mingle and then we are blessed
because we are happy, happier and then the happiest seniors
there are.
We are exuberant, ecstatic,
euphoric and Thomas Jefferson said happiness is
tranquility.
Tranquil we are.
Elita Sohmer Clayman
Baltimore, Maryland
September 2008
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