My dear cousin, Barbara Ann, phoned me
just three days before the Birthday Party.
Since returning to Canada from China last
year - and missing all my friends in that beautiful land so much - I have had some comfort here with family gatherings at
all our special Western Holiday Times.
I first met Barbara Ann again on Good Friday
of last year, and also visited with her husband, Eldon, and her aged father Robert in their Vancouver home.
Since then we have celebrated our own birthdays,
the birthday of Eldon, Christmas Time, and most recently the birthday of Linda, the wife of Malcolm, Barbara Ann's older brother.
Linda too has a major China link:
her father and two brothers are deeply enmeshed in international corporate business deals in North China, and have been for
seven years.
I asked if I could come with my new business
partner and great friend Joe Wong, a Canadian Chinese.
"I guess so!" said Barbara Ann, "Come out
to our house before four, and we'll all drive together to West Van!"
When we arrived at four on the button,
there were a few computer questions asked of Joe, who is a real Computer Genius. He designs software for his own company,
and also knows hardware very well.
The guys sat down at the computer, while
Barbara and I did a few last minute chores in the kitchen; preparing dinner for her dad who is 85 and needs daily care, and
wrapping our gifts for Linda in mauve and purple foil papers.
We were the first guests to arrive at the
small and elegant dinner party.
Malcolm and his two grown sons greeted
us all at the door, and we walked up the steps of their two level home to see the dazzlingly warm Linda still on the phone
with birthday well-wishers.
They are the sort of happy and stable Canadian
family that my students and friends in China would admire and identify with.
The grown sons are serious and handsome
young men who share the respect of Malcolm for his gentle and effervescent wife, and yet are equally close to their caring
and sober father.
The wine was plentiful, and also featured
delicious non-alcoholic wine, which I alternate with the real stuff, so I can drink more!
Barbara and I gave our gifts of scented
candles and best-selling books to Linda - one a mystery by Mary Higgins Clark, and the other the heart-touching autobiography
of Heather McCartney, the wife of Paul.
We are not a very wild group, facing major
economic recession in the province of British Columbia, in spite of what the media here say about some illusory economic boom.
(Yes, to real estate and tourism, no to
many other professions.)
The second floor living room was almost
similar to equivalent rooms in China now: white and beige furniture, the three over-stuffed chairs placed equidistant from
one another, forming a square with the large loveseat.
The patriarch of the family is a gourmet
cook, and he was occupied doing most of the food preparation as he loves to do that - finishing a lasagna that was the best
I have ever eaten.
It was so good that it was almost another
type of dish; maybe it was the type of cheese used. We sat down formally, nine of us, at a large dining room table,
and also ate a buttery de-boned chicken and a large salad, also beyond a normal salad in its tastiness. The lettuce was shredded
like cole slaw, and the vegetables clear of heavy dressing.
Linda and I share an interest in New Age
metaphysics and were overjoyed to discover we had both been thinking about
the word grace
for the entire week before her birthday
party. We dwelt on what a wonderful word it was, signifying both physical and spiritual grace.
I had wanted also to do her astrology chart
and she told me the city where she was born featured the word grace in her day of birth.
We debated at our end of the table as to
where there would be a Birthday Cake as the food was so rich and filling, and I was certain that there would be!
A rich Black Forest Cake was served, with
a very chocolate-y taste and real whipped cream. Coffee and tea and a very strong liquour with tiny bits of orange peel in
it.
One of the sons played us classic rock
songs on the guitar he had received for his own birthday the year before.
The House Of The Rising Sun was one song
we almost all knew the words to - and though the imagery of the young runaway doomed to return to New Orleans
to wear my ball and chain
was unexpected in that setting, a happy
time was had by all, and we parted hopeful of the next time we would be all together again.
Arielle Gabriel, Vancouver, March 19, 2005.