Celebrations

Today is my big girls 21st birthday! Wow, how can that be? The time has gone so fast. Thinking of the day she was born, knowing how wanted she was and how excited David and I were at the thought of our baby's arrival. We didn't know the sex of our baby, we wanted it to be a surprise although David was quite determined he wanted a girl. I remember feeling quite pressured...what would happen if I gave birth to a wee boy instead??? I couldn't very well put it back and try again! I never realised how much in love I would fall with this wee child and how much she would change my life. Even now I am often wowed by the love I feel for my girls.

We had a wonderful celebration on Saturday night. It turned out so much better than I ever hoped for. My sister and family surprised the birthday girl as the party began and everyone else was surprised too. The less number of people who knew, the less chance there was of her finding out they were coming over. Only a small handful of us knew they were coming over so it was very cool. My sister helped me with platters for the table, getting them ready from a motel room for goodness sake! But she is very much into cooking and making food look pretty - something we certainly don't have in common. I had a vision and it came together. While David is no longer with us, he was very much a part of the night. We had his ashes outside with flowers and a photo board of him with the girls and a bottle of tequila which used to be one of our many drinks of choice in the old days. Speeches were made with a lot of references to him and how proud he would be of his big girl - of both of them but of course the focus was on the birthday girl. Many tears were shed along with many laughs.

For a night I forgot I had an awful illness and I danced the night away, drank lots of brandy and ginger ale, played beer pong with the young ones having to scull a few because I was so bloody hopeless and had a few tequila shots for David. I finally crashed out to bed about 3.00am, almost unable to lift my feet. I was so sore....my feet were throbbing something terrible, my whole body ached and I was like a frozen block of ice. But I don't regret a moment of it! I had so much fun and I wanted to do it all over again! I didn't even wake up with a hang over, but I did only have a couple of hours sleep so had to zonk out for a few hours later in the afternoon.

Perhaps the most emotional part of the evening was when it was time for the official presentation. I didn't want o get a conventional, mirror key. I wanted something personalised and so put the feelers out. My cousin from Opotiki put his hand up and we spoke about how we should do this and what we thought would be appropriate. As long as both heritages (maori & niuean) were represented and David, I was happy to leave it up to his interpretation. So he presented a taonga to both the girls,  not just the birthday girl - which I was completely blown away with and I don't think there was a dry eye in the place...simply beautiful and I can never express how grateful I am. The girls love this uncle dearly, and even the wood (totara) has come from his dads farm (my dads brother) where my sister and I spent many family holidays so everything about these carvings mean so much.