We’ve met Christi, zillion years ago. I had a garage sale back in the days when material possessions filled a hole of misguided self-esteem, my children kissed my cheeks with butterfly kisses while circling their small tender arms around my neck, and a stranger on a motorcycle stopped by to take a look. His charismatic personality took charge of the conversation and soon we found out a commonality amongst us, we were both Romanian-Americans and lived only five minutes apart.

Throughout the years we stayed close, mostly due to Christi’s great communication skills, something both Chet and I need to work on and together we have seen good times, laughter, hard times, surgery, loss, cancer, and then some more good times. His wife, Irina, is a hard-working woman with the cutest dimples I’ve ever seen:) His daughters are great and his mom is a very intelligent woman with fantastic stories to tell.

Saturday we celebrated his 59th B-day, a celebration done amongst close friends and family members, good people with hard working ethics, smart and caring. Being amongst them fills my heart with warmth and love every time and I am grateful for their friendship. Chet, who has a high regard for all our Romanian friends, loves his relationship with Christi even if his sense of humor makes Chet blush at times.

Christi’s plans for his 60th B-day are big, bright and full of life, as he is. He’s always had great stories of communism harassment, time spent in Africa under his father’s guidance exploring archeological settings, coming to America, legal risks he took in this new land of opportunities, successes, and failures but mostly a long life lived well. I love listening to those stories, I love seeing his adventurous spirit carve unpredictable new roads in his life.

I look forward to seeing what the future holds for both Christi and his wife, Irina, but of one thing I’m sure of -it will not be boring.

God Bless.