Half-a-century experience

I like my grandpa. He is so funny and kind. He and my grandmother have been living together for fifthly years. My grandfather always likes to advise people. He believes that his mission in this world is to share his life experiences and teach people right from wrong. He wants to teach others the knowledge he has acquired in his half-century of experience, helping them learn from these experiences and not make wrong choices, he likes to be the center of attention in that way. 

As much as my grandmother wants to convince him that people no longer like to listen to advice, he doesn’t care, and whenever he finds someone he starts talking about his memories and life experiences. Hence why despite him being a nice and funny person, everyone becomes bored of him quickly and tries to avoid talking with him, especially at parties. To be honest, when he starts to talk, he does not stop until someone stops him and usually, that person is my grandma, who points to him by rolling her eyes or pulling his arm while smiling, which means “Please Stop”.

Next week, they plan to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. A number of friends and family are invited. My grandparents were supposed to have their wedding anniversary toasts and both were excited about it.

Grandma is concerned that grandpa will be garrulous, which will result in everyone getting bored at the party, so she gave me a mission to find out what grandpa’s toast is about and how long it would take since I am his favorite and youngest grandson. I tried hard to get some information out of him about his anniversary toast but he did not confess, although it was clear that he was working hard on it. He wanted to share his half-century of successful experiences of marriage and give admonitions to others on how to succeed as well. I tried many times and different ways to find out it is under a pretext but to no avail, and his lips were sealed in this case. Eventually, I gave up and my grandmother started thinking of another solution.

Grandpa was in charge of the ceremony and had planned everything since he is a good planner.

The party was held in their backyard with azaleas of different colors planted on either side.

The trees and flower bushes were decorated with colorful ferry lights. A long table with a white satin tablecloth was placed in the middle of the courtyard which had various drinks and snacks on it, and a white and gold glitter cake with an edible wedding photo, in the middle of the table.

A few round tables with chairs in the same satin cover were placed around with the bases of Yellow roses and violets.

At the end of the yard, Grandpa had placed a large wooden frame which some old photos from their wedding to this day were in it. If anyone had an old photo of them, grandpa had asked them to write something on the back of the photo and put it in this frame. His idea was interesting. Everyone had brought a photo; photos from the days that no one may remember them anymore. Everyone read their sentences and stuck them in the frame

Grandmother and grandfather were both happy. Grandma had worn a sleeveless silver long lace dress, pixie haircut was right for her, which had a nice harmony with the color of her dress, she had become so pretty. Grandpa was in a tuxedo, with a black bow tie and black leather shoes, he looked like a gentleman and very handsome too.

The party was good and everyone enjoyed it. Grandmother's speech was short and sweet. She thanked everyone first and then said that her decision to marry my grandpa was one of the best decisions of her life, despite the challenges that she had faced. Then it was Grandpa's turn. 

Grandma and I were eager to see the results of his efforts over the past few weeks. Grandpa stood up, straightened his coat, and then his bow tie; he had a big smile on his face. He looked at grandma with love, then took out a piece of paper from his packets, worn his pince-nez glasses which were on his vest pocket, and started: “thank you, everyone, who join us celebrating our 50 years’ successful marriage.” Then he looked at the guests to make sure that their attention was on him.

"I hope everyone has enjoyed the party so far. Tonight, I want to briefly talk about the most insignificant decision of my life, which became the biggest event of my life."

“It was mother's day”. He raised his voice. I wondered why he was talking about Mother's Day on his wedding anniversary. I thought he might have forgotten his speech or has gotten Alzheimer and we had not noticed it. 

“I should have bought flowers for my mom. I always used to give her five pink rose twigs on Mother's Day and it meant that she is very special to me, she loved this gift so much.” 

He swung his body slightly to left and right, sometimes to back and forth, it seemed he is enjoying his speech.

“That day I went to the same florist which I used to go to, it was located at the end of our street and the owner knew me. The florist was super busy and I had a meeting with a lawyer to talk about my new business idea. I thought to myself that I would come back here after the meeting and buy my pink roses.

My meeting became longer than I thought, after the meeting I was sure that our small neighborhood florist was now closed. I was very upset, probably most of the florists had run out of roses. I sadly decided to buy another gift for my mom.” 

Grandpa took off his glasses and drank a sip of water and continued. It was as if he did not need his note anymore.

“Suddenly I saw a colorful van full of flowers and plants which was parked alongside the road. A mobile florist. I thought to myself that it must not have pink roses, so I went to it reluctantly. Only to end up buying five pink roses from a smart, creative and beautiful girl with sky-colored eyes, as she was handing the roses to me, I felt like I wanted to be with her forever.”

Here, Grandpa looked at my grandma with tears in his eyes and continued in a trembling voice. “And it so happened that a few months later I gifted the girl nine red roses, with the meaning that, I want to be with you forever, and we have stayed together ever since."

Although almost everyone knew their marriage story, the way he described, impressed everyone, and the guests cheered and clapped for him with teary eyes.

A couple of guests who thought his speech was over, stood up but grandpa invited them to be silent again, by shaking his hand. He then put on his glasses and started reading from his paper loudly: “Yes, you need to know how much a small, seemingly insignificant decision can affect your life. Even when you think you cannot decide, it means that you have decided to not make a decision”

My grandmother, quickly realized that grandfather was about to enter the subject of ethics and his advice, she winked at me, in significance to giving me the heads up. 

She went to thank Grandpa and I got up and clapped and cheered again, some of the guests took advantage of the time and jumped out from their chairs, and grandpa’s speech ended with my grandma's kiss on his cheek.

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