Open House
Last night, my friend Marilyn threw a surprise party for her husband Dave.
Marilyn planned the party, but she couldn’t anticipate that in the weeks between sending out the invitations and the party itself, Dave’s business would suffer a serious fire and his ailing mother would be hospitalized. While Marilyn had to be wondering what next? she didn’t freak out and cancel the party, as I might have been tempted to. Instead, she told me that if there was a time in his life that Dave needed a party, it was now.
Yesterday morning was mild and sunny. I stopped at Marilyn’s house. She was bustling around her backyard, setting up tables and chairs.
“You’ve got the perfect day,” I said.
She nodded. “Thank God, because I’ve invited a ton of people.”
During the afternoon, ominous gray clouds rolled in. The temperature plummeted. At around five p.m., it began to rain. Poor Marilyn, I thought. She couldn’t catch a break.
When Sam and I got to the party, it was still cold and miserable. Dave was already there; he’d come home from work early, before the guests arrived. “Today of all days,” said Marilyn, but she was smiling. Then she told us to come inside, where it was warm and dry.
The house was packed. The dining room table was heaped with food, and the D.J. was setting up in the kitchen. Furniture had been pushed against the wall to create a dance floor. From time to time, the rain would stop and people would spill out into the yard. Then, lightning and the rumble of thunder would send them scurrying back in. Marilyn and Dave moved cheerfully between the throng of assembled friends and family. Clearly, they had decided, whether deliberately or by default, to open the doors wide and just roll with it. Life exploded through those open doors, in the form of laughter and music and muddy feet and the sugar-and-attention-fueled three-year-old daughter of their neighbor break-dancing on their kitchen floor.
Last night, my friends threw a surprise party that surprised us all. Pretty much nothing went as planned. It wasn’t perfect.
Not at all.
It was better than perfect.