On his 51th birthday he refuses to have a celebration because

It is Eddie’s 51st birthday, his first since Marguerite’s death. Eddie had wanted to stop celebrating his birthday after Marguerite's accident, but she kept insisting. Now that she is gone, he has no reason to do anything special. After that, the birthdays keep coming, one after the other; Eddie turns sixty, and soon, he is sixty-eight, then seventy-five. When Eddie turns eighty-two, he spends his birthday visiting the graves of his parents, his brother, and finally, Marguerite.