Life goes on
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Sandra Tsing Loh's brother shares his birthday with one of the nation's most tragic events in its history: 9/11.
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with The Loh Life. Today’s topic: Life Goes On.
So last Friday morning, after dropping the kids off at school, I’m sipping my travel coffee, I’ve got Morning Edition on. It’s that annual September 11th moment, of national tragedy, planes flying too low, smoke swirling, people crying, choirs singing mournful elegies.
And I smack my hand to my forehead and say, "That’s right! How could I forget? It’s my brother’s birthday! Today is the joyous day he turns 50!"
Yes, my brother is one of those special people with a September 11th birthday. From his early forties on, his destiny would be to have each subsequent age milestone marked with children’s choirs singing round the clock the saddest versions ever of our national anthem.
Aging is hard enough for us all, without each new birthday literally being marked, by all American media, with a black X. Although I suppose the more neurotic among us might say, "My turning 50? It is a national tragedy! A day of mourning is entirely appropriate."
But my brother is not of that ilk. When I called him, he calmly reported his plans – dinner with friends, probably some birthday cake, and he was treating himself to a long birthday run.
When I asked how he felt about turning 50, he said: "Age is hereditary – all her life our mother was always 28, so’m I!"
Other clever bon mots he had involved his upcoming wedding next month. A widower now for several years, he’s getting married for the second time to a longtime friend who is also getting married for the second time. Like him she has several children, not to mention a poodle, cats, and an elderly dad who already lives with them in a large rambling house.
Since their domestic plate is quite full already, they’re having a green wedding which is to say a cheap casual wedding where they have an excuse to skip all the formalities. To save the planet, and to avoid further unnecessary oppression of Third World peoples, there will be no artificial decorations, the rings will, I suppose, be made from some local mineral or at the very least diamond-free, she can re-wear her old wedding dress and, as they like to say, even the gently-used bride and groom are being recycled.
Although it is true that child labor will stand in in lieu of professional wedding entertainment.
No gifts, although, given the economy, they have registered at Wells Fargo. A gently recycled witticism from my brother’s friend Mike.
Another year, another September 11th, and life goes on!
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