You’ll pardon the fuzzy nature of this photo.
That’s my father-in-law and his best friend. “Friends for 60 years!” they said today. They are each the godfather to the other’s kid(s). Bob and Clem’s wives went to nursing school together. Between the two families they had three daughters, and they essentially grew up together. This is about as close to family as you can get without the DNA, which just makes it better, really, because you’re choosing all of those people in your life.
And so it is fitting that this is the last Christmas party of the season. But it was the “Friends for 60 years!” comment that you really like. Especially if you are an in-law, as I am. They all have so many wonderful stories together, two generations and so many decades, and they are all fun to hear.
Then someone goes to the back and pulls out this photograph, because somewhere along the way they discussed it and realized that no one but Bob had ever seen Clem’s upper lip:
That was a photo he’d rescued from his father’s house, one of those thousands of items salvaged from the millions and millions of memories lost because of Hurricane Sandy. We heard Sandy stories, we had homemade lasagna that you wouldn’t believe. We unwrapped presents. We watched the two little kids play. They are the only two kids I’ve met my entire laugh that don’t want to play with me.
That’s OK. I played with their trains, invented a game (that they loved) and made a video:
And I had Sammi, the love dog:
Can’t beat that for late Christmas fun.
Now bring on the spring.
