I never really thought much about turning 90. That is, until April 6, 2023, the day I turned 89. That’s when my daughter, Alana, asked me the life-altering question: “Dad, what are you going to do special for your 90th birthday?”
“As little as possible,” I responded in my best bah, humbug voice. “Maybe Laurel and I will go to Del Taco.” Anything to avoid the deluge of obligatory phone calls and discordant group renditions of “Happy Birthday.”
The older I get, the more I detest celebrating my birthday. Especially in-person birthday parties, which for seniors often turn into a form of elder abuse. Hour after hour of being forced to answer the relentless question, “How does it feel to turn ______?” By the third or fourth reprise I’m ready to respond with a knee to the groin. That is, if I could lift my knee high enough. Sort of like providing the warm-up act for The Elephant Man.
In diversity world, with all of its clamor about intersectionality, age tends to get relegated to bystander status. Oh, sure, lots of talk about generational cohorts, like boomers and zoomers. But aging tends to get left out of the intersectional conversation. Or old age gets conflated with disability since old people inevitably become, well, more limited. At least in younger eyes.
This brings me back to my daughter, Alana. Although I had made my anti-party position perfectly clear, she was not to be denied. “You must have a 90th birthday party, Dad. If you don’t, the family will be so disappointed.” I hastened to explain to her that it’s my party and I’ll avoid it if I want to. I wasn’t about to go through a birthday party ordeal just to please the family.
Not to be dissuaded, Alana persisted. “What will it take to get you to come to your 90th birthday party?” Now the ball was in my court, but not for long. From the deepest recesses of my unconscious came my response: “I’ll come if you make a movie about my life, so I can just show up at the party, kick back, and enjoy it.”
Not the least bit dismayed, Alana agreed that she and the rest of the family would make a movie about me. Party on. Now I could look forward to a celebration of my life while I was still around to celebrate it.
That was more than a year ago. The months passed and April 6, 2024, my 90th birthday, has come and gone. So has my birthday party, which was held a week later with family flying in from around the United States and Mexico.
And what about the movie of my life? It happened, courtesy of Alana and her team composed mainly of our six grandkids. It helped that my immediate and extended family is loaded with creative people, film studies majors, musicians, artists, and multiple take-charge types.
But I didn’t just get a movie. The team also produced an 8-page newspaper about me, edited by granddaughter Kai with articles by family members and a comic strip by granddaughter Amaya. The newspaper was distributed to partygoers. A poem about me by talented Oregon writer (and friend) Ellen Summerfield. A jaw-dropping and utterly surprising Jumble puzzle that appeared in 650 newspapers nationwide, featuring my family and a banner with “Happy 90th Birthday, Carlos Cortés,” created by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek.
A 160-page book of my personal reminiscences highlighted by family photos. Of course, creating that book involved the team turning the tables on me by signing me up for an online service that, for thirty weeks, sent me a weekly question about my life, which I answered with multi-page reflections (“What advice would you give yourself at age twenty?”).
And, of course, the 45-minute movie based on dozens of Zoom interviews (eight hours in all) conducted by Alana. It was an absolute blast, sitting with the 65 party attendees and listening to family, friends, and professional colleagues from all over talk about my life. This also provided plenty of surprises — seeing myself through the eyes of others.
The party itself turned out to be an 11 on a scale of 1-to-10. But that was only the momentary party. The real party was the entire year that I spent interacting with my family and friends about the upcoming event.
Family has always been important to me. But it’s never meant more than during those glorious 366 days (with leap year) of my 89th year, highlighted by some of the best family-and-friend conversations I’ve had in years.
So save the date, April 6, 2034, when I turn 100.
Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash
He also edited the four-volume Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia (2013).