In May 2007 I turned fifty years old and I was married. Donnie and I were looking forward to being empty nesters and we had such great plans for our future. But life has its own plans and in September Donnie died suddenly. So this May 2017 I turned sixty years old and I’ve been widowed for almost ten years. This was a big turning point in my life as I retired from my full time career plus I’m now officially a senior. How do you go about celebrating a major birthday without your loved one? I didn’t make any big plans as I thought I would have a quiet lunch with my sisters and maybe supper out with some friends. But this is the amazing thing about life, just when you think that you have it all together, it goes off and does its own thing. My sisters and friends got together (unknown to me) to plan a huge surprise 60th birthday party for me. They got me good as I totally didn’t see it coming. How blessed I was to have all my family, children, grandchildren and friends come together to celebrate my life. What can you say when your sisters tell you how fortunate you are to have such great friends and your friends tell you how lucky you are to have such great sisters. Sometimes it takes these special celebrations to make you realize what you still have in life. After all these years I still miss Donnie but I’ve learned to handle celebrations as occasions to enjoy those that I still have in my life.