A Change in Life

If life could be described as a song I guess my life in 1986 could be patterned after “Memories“, from the Broadway play “Cats”. It was just mediocre and eventful only to please others. The year was 1986, and on February 18th I turned thirty. At one time in my life that was considered a milestone. I was given a very expensive camera as a gift from my parents that year. I took pictures of almost everything.

Having a birthday” had lately just been another year gone by, but for some strange and unknown reason I felt the urge to do something special for the 30th. I had always wanted to thank my parents for granting me life when thirty years came around and I actually had the means and the opportunity to do so. With the idea taken from previous banquets for weddings and other big gatherings, I decided on a banquet style meal at a Chinese restaurant. I booked the restaurant in the Richmond district, invited my paternal aunts and uncles – and one cousin, and planned a menu fit for a king….well, at least for someone who wanted something big. Although I was dating at the time, I really didn’t have someone special to share this event with and at that time it really didn’t matter. But deep inside it must have.
 


The dinner went with a couple of hitches. First the reservations didn’t seem to mean much to the restaurant as it meant to me as we had to wait even though we were on time. Second, my father, the most unforgiving customer of the bunch found a fly in his drink, the drink the restaurant offered each of us for the delay. After being seated however we seemed to have a good time. The food was fine, but the gathering was the kind you never forget. No arguments, no food returned to the kitchen and no complaints to me other than that of the wait and that of the drinks. I was now thirty. I felt ready for something more. In the weeks that followed the blowout birthday celebration, I attended family gatherings like my maternal family reunion at the Peking Duck House in Alameda, co-workers parties and events sponsored by the dating service I decided to sign up for the previous year. An adopted aunt also introduced me to someone she thought would be “the one” for me. And if I wasn’t approached by someone I now consider a dear family friend, she might have become that person. The cards must have been stacked against her. For in April of 1986, seven little words would change my life as I knew it, leaving behind a broken heart.