Congratulations!

This weekend my family and I celebrated my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. This was a great occasion. There were 40 people at dinner and easily could have been 400 had we chosen to send out more invites and to go the giant restaurant route. My grandparents have known so many people throughout their life and have really touched a large number of them.

My mom told a story of how when she, her sisters, and their parents visited Baku (where we are from) in September, everyone needed to see my grandparents. And to take them into their home. And to feed them. I mean, these are people they have not seen in more than 20 years. People they knew in a completely different life. And yet my grandparents were remembered. They were still loved...all these years later.

My grandmother was a teacher and her students from 20, 30, 40 years ago still remember her and love her. For her 70th birthday a year ago, a man and his wife flew down from Canada. She had taught him in the Soviet Union in the 10th grade and he saw a post on an Internet chat room for people from Baku about her birthday. A woman emailed my aunt a story about when she was in 8th grade and had my grandmother for a teacher. This girl's father was being sent to a different part of the Soviet Union for work for a bit. And his wife was going for him. The girl could not come, but refused to stay with other family...unless my grandparents took her with them on their family vacation that summer. Well, they took her.

Those are just a few examples of the kind of people my grandparents are. And to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary...especially when 50% of marriages end in divorce now....well, it was an amazing feeling. Even better was the hupa. The hupa, for those of you don't know, is the traditional canopy which Jews get married under. Well, when my grandparents got married 50 years ago, the hupa was obviously not an observable tradition (it being the Soviet Union and all). So my Rabbi came out and performed a traditional wedding for them. They were "remarried" under a hupa. They signed the ktuba (the wedding contract), which by the way, is ridiculously slighted toward the female. I mean us guys have to pay for EVERYTHING in case of divorce, according to the ktuba. To me, it was a beautiful occasion. Just seeing them together like that and seeing all the family there made me so happy. And I wanted to share that with you all.

Don't ask me why.