Showing posts with label Milestone Birthday Celebration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milestone Birthday Celebration. Show all posts

Saturday, April 6, 2019

How To Celebrate A Milestone Event For Your Elderly Parent

This past January, my Dad celebrated his 90th birthday. It is quite a milestone for anyone and it was no different with him. He has lived a lot of years and has seen a lot of things in his lifetime. One thing he would tell you is how far the world has come in terms of technology and how wealthy our country has become. He was just a little boy in the Depression and although he was still young, it was extremely hard on him. His Dad was like a lot of folks during that time. They owned a nice little farm in rural Utah, but they just couldn't scrape together the money to pay the property taxes and so they lost the farm. It was such a blow to him at that young age.

For several years, He often went very hungry, at a time when he needed to eat in order to grow. He remembers eating oft-boiled bone broth made of one potato if they were lucky. Once a year they might split an orange for a special treat. Somehow he survived, but he was never the same care-free child he was before the Depression. He grew up quickly. From that time forward, everything he did was influenced by those early hardships. He was gone and out the door at 17 years old, working on huge ships, delivering cargo all over the world as a merchant marine.

As his 90th grew closer, I knew I wanted to do something special for him, something that was different from the normal birthday cake and dinner get-togethers we have with the family. Those events are always nice, but this called for something a bit different.