For decades, Dad has celebrated his birthday for the ENTIRE month of April; so, of course he was onboard to have a big party this year.
One of my older sisters took care of all the planning for the Saturday early afternoon party and “voluntold” the rest of us what she expected us to do.
Officially, the only two things I was asked to do was make a powerpoint with pictures of Dad throughout his life and pay for half the cost of his birthday cake and cases of water.
Yet, I use any such event to practice my moviemaking skills and to use as blog fodder.
This time around, I recruited my nephew, who after dinner was served, in turn, recruited one of his older sisters, to be a cinematographer.
This worked out perfectly–at least as an improvement to me running around trying to do it all.
At the beginning of the event, I took a picture of everyone as they entered the venue with my iPhone, either before or after they signed in.
In the meantime, my nephew familiarized himself with my antiquated Canon digital camera kit I’d bought myself last Christmas due to its low cost since I wanted to practice with all its accessories.
Although the point of the evening was to celebrate Dad’s life, I wanted to document the event as much as possible.
How many more times will such events happen, especially with all of the elders who were present on that glorious day?
No one really wants to think about that, but it’s important to capture the spirit of the celebration as much as possible.
This birthday celebration was like a mini family reunion, with relatives from both Dad’s and Mom’s side of the family in attendance, along with newer “members” of the family such as Dad’s CNAs.
As a matter of fact, one of Dad’s former CNAs owned the venue and catered the event.
Moreover, my sister’s in-laws even attended after knowing my parents for decades.
What I wanted to capture, both visually and auditorily, were the individuals who attended and how they participated.
Even though everyone signed in, wished Dad well, ate and socialized, what does Dad have left of the event to add to his fading memories?
At least this way Dad can view pictures and videos.
My nephew captured B roll while my niece captured most of the speeches.
When the speeches first began, my niece initially took pictures.
Something told me that when my nephew handed off the camera, that he didn’t tell her to take video.
Although it was second nature for me to capture all the tributes to Dad via video, my spidey senses told me that my niece hadn’t thought of that.
I just chalk it up to another lesson learned.
With every passing event, I feel more prepared to document them.
Nonetheless, without any rehearsal, we managed to pull off a wonderful event.
In addition to discussing a plan of attack with my “camera crew,” we need to tighten up on sitting arrangements and having bottles of water already on the table.
Next time around, we need to be more mindful of our those who used mobility devices.
We even had to make accommodations for Dad to sit at his special table of honor once he arrived in his wheelchair.
Half of the seating were long wooden benches, which challenged the mostly senior crowd.
Although food and drinks were available in the other room, we could have easily set out the small bottles of water on the tables.
After guests stopped pouring in, I abandoned my post to get a cup of lemonade.
Almost on a fluke, I grabbed a few of the small bottles of water and divided half of its contents into two different water glasses.
Soon, I was the only server on duty, circulating around to fill water glasses, starting with our elders.
My sisters, who remained in the other room while all this was going on, still maintained that people could get their own drinks once they came to fix their plates.
What they failed to appreciate was that not everyone was going to fix their own plates and that, at the most, people only had two hands.
I’m not sure how many of these events are in my future, but one thing’s for damn sure, those bottles of water will already be delivered as people arrive.
As a matter of fact, water can be on the sign-in.
At one point, I showed the powerpoint slide show that I’d created.
I’d collected, scanned and arranged over 100 pictures of Dad along with several family members and friends.
I had taken pains to test everything out prior to the day of the event and even tested out the projector, displaying the images against the white curtain background.
Since I’d projected the images from the middle of the room, what I didn’t realize was that the closer the viewer was to the curtains, the more prominent the folds in the curtains interfered with seeing the image clearly.
Yet another lesson learned, but I got around that by texting nearly everyone who attended a copy of the slideshow.
Thank goodness we only had the venue for four hours.
Dad usually takes several naps during that amount of time, but he had so many people to talk to while eating and enjoying the speeches that he never once dozed off.
The following day, after Sunday dinner, Dad opening his gifts, which included lottery tickets.
Dad used to be a numbers and lottery enthusiast, but he hadn’t scratched any tickets since his accident last year.
A really popular gift was money inside of a birthday card. One person gifted Dad a $100 bill, which he promptly tucked into his Gait belt as if he was a dancer. Mom eventually convinced him to give it to her, so she could deposit it with the other birthday money.
As many beautiful cards as Dad received, I was rather surprised that no one had bought the same card as someone else.
Dad had difficulty opening his gifts since his left hand has lost dexterity, but we were so happy that he finally retrieved the two bundt cakes out of the gift box.
With assistance, Dad sported his Air Force Veteran cap and matching hoodie.
For his last gift, a customized pair of socks, I offered to wear them on his behalf. After all, Dad wears compression socks, which they weren’t and who is vain enough to want to wear socks with his own face plastered all over them?
I gave him the birthday card that I’d made for him along with his breakfast on his actual birthday that following Wednesday.
For your viewing pleasure, here’s Dad’s powerpoint tribute: