BIRTHDAY PARTIES. A NEW FORM OF CELEBRATION
In the past, birthday parties in Mexico were common celebrations with many people, traditional food, big cakes, delicious beverages, colorful balloons, chocolate gelatins and many presents. But, after a year of being at home, and without going to any birthday party again, having virtual celebrations has become a normal activity these days. This last time, I just had to open my virtual session at 9:00 p.m. to join some friends from another country, to celebrate my friend´s mother´s birthday, who was turning 95. My tenth virtual party in a year, and the second one in a day!
We, the reunited people, were happy for being there connected. This time, virtual sessions were not used anymore to talk about future plans, we wouldn´t do any DAFO, neither would we take our calendar to register our next meeting. We would just enjoy the time “being together”, connected by a screen.
It was nice to see everybody´s face relax and happy. My friend´s mom, Renee, was sitting on her bed and she watched the screen of the computer happily and with curiosity, trying to find out who had decided to be with her in that important day. At the beginning, there were 10 people, then we were 15, 18, 25 and 30 people waching at her too. Everybody began greeting and thanking her for all what she had shared in her life with them. Grateful faces could be appreciated in every little frame of the screen and many words of praise were said. This was a different birthday party from those we had been accustomed to. Nobody felt ashamed for expressing his thankful feelings knowing that maybe this could be one of the last birthday parties we could have with her. And it is not because of her 95, but because we all knew the danger that surrounded us everywhere.
The first virtual birthday celebration in the same date was with another fríend. It was also by Zoom with 15 people. This friend is a lot much younger than my second friend but he felt as nostalgic as the second one, not because of his age, but because he had recently said good bye to his beloved brother.
This was a peer party and everybody appreciated and thanked his invitation. Most of them recognized Juan de Dios´ good leadership and wished him the best. Faces full of respect and appreciation looked at him too. In both parties the Mexican Mañanitas were sung, and we all had the great opportunity of expressing our gratitude and commendation to our friends. In both parties we talked about past experiences, old Jobs, studies, friends, time at school or trips and thousands of good memories emerged.
Some anecdotes and good wishes were mentioned at all times. In these events there was no a birthday cake, nobody ate or drank anything but the time passed very fast as if we had just opened our session for 5 minutes. We all had many things to do but they were no important because we were with the people we loved and we would have liked to shorten the time or the space and to hug each other, forgetting bad moments or possible misunderstandings.
It was not a moment of mentioning that we had been missing good moments for 12 continuous months, or to talk about the fear that it represented to us not having received the vaccine yet, in a time when the 54% of Israel´s citizens has received the first dose of the cononavirus vaccine and its 42.1 % has received the second dose. Or when more than 22 million people in the UK have received at least a dose, and in The United States they are administering 2.1 million shots per day to combat this virus.
But when we are also suspecting that maybe, in Mexico, many of us would have to wait longer than expected, due to the fact that till today, almost 3,200,000 vaccines have been administered to physicians and elders, which would scarcely represent a 2% of the total population.
However, these new reunions have emerged in a form of celebrating and fostering that connectedness that we, as human beings, need with others, to feel that we continue belonging to a group. Eventually, we have also learnt that this virus can kill everybody, no matter who you are or what you do, even if you are a senator, a secretary of education, a candidate of an importan political party or if you are homeless. Then, it has helped us to reinvent our way of being friendly with others and to recreate our practices, to continue having fun together. With this new practice, loneliness can be avoided; and that emotional dependance and the huge fear of being alone have led us to use new technology to continue communicated; perfectly conscious that someday, we, all, will be celebrating our own birthdays hopelessly alone in the eternity.
*Rosalía Nalleli Pérez-Estrada. Con más de 27 años de experiencia en la docencia en la enseñanza de idiomas y en educación, ha sido directora y docente en Educación superior pública y privada; escritora e Investigadora invitada por CIFE y fundadora de la Sociedad Anónima Madison School Come to Be the Best, desde 1999.
https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/mexico/
