In the last 30 years, I haven’t celebrated a birthday with my family. I moved to the US soon after college, and I have missed countless family holidays and special occasions. For my 50th birthday, I decided to visit. My son was also allowed to miss a week of school so he could join us. It had been seven years since he’d visited the family. He’s 16 and when he heads to college, he won’t have as much time as now. We had a wonderful time with the family during the first portion of the visit. Seeing my son interact with my family for the first time in years was nice. On our last visit, he wasn’t very engaging because he was young.
On my special day, we were planning a night of dinner and dancing, but the weather turned sour. As a result of the tropical storm that day, the governor enacted a “dry law.” I hadn’t heard of this before, but it prohibits businesses from selling alcohol for 24 hours during a hurricane warning. As a result, most of them close as early as 4 p.m.
To wait for the storm to pass, we ordered pizza and bought a six-pack of beer from the liquor store before it closed. The following morning we realized the storm had missed the island so we planned to meet at my brother’s house for dinner and cake.
In spite of what I had originally planned for my birthday celebration, it turned out to be even better than I had imagined. The happiest gift I could ever receive was my son’s Latino celebration experience. For those of you who have never experienced a Latino celebration, they involve a great deal of food, booze, loud music, and a lot of laughter.
