Back In Time.

This week someone I've known since I was four passed away - it's bittersweet, isn't it? Even though I haven't physically seen him in years I thought of him quite often, his children - my friends have let me know how he was and have passed on my hellos, my Christmas cards full of how the boys were doing. As he passed we were all reliving the past  - Fabian was a bit....unusual. We laugh remembering the Do It Yourself Sailboat in which we were enlisted to assist, all six of us. Kate, Mark, Jeanne, Janet, Henry and me. One afternoon he had us bracing sheets of paneling on interior with epoxy in 90 degree heat, curved and bending to the walls. The idea that the glue would hold after about half and hour (day) and we could go on our merry way. This was before fumes were bad for you by the way. We let go slowly - it stayed and  as we swarmed down the ladder to the ground you could hear the paneling popping off the walls, I do believe we all headed for the woods....He paid us to correct multiple choice tests for his law students - we sat at folding tables with the answer grids, I often wondered as an adult what those students would have thought if they knew their tests being handed back on Monday had been reviewed by a group of elementary kids? When I went to visit them one summer in Brooklyn he took us all to a  high end fund raiser for the Governor one night because he thought it would be good for me to see, so he showed up with four bouncy children - we had ice cream in Little Italy at midnight after - he had his faults but they were shadowed by his sheer velocity - we can all tell stories about Fabian for hours,  I wish I had taken more time to appreciate those days, my brother mentioned the time he took us to the drive in( and keep in mind we all traveled together so if an adult went there were six children) where if you made it through the night of B horror movies you got free donuts. And we would have gotten the doughnuts if he hadn't woken up and realized what time it was. It's funny but all week I've been thinking of the times I would go back to if I had the chance. I would go back to the summer days in Brooklyn hanging out the window with a stick trying to whack the cherries off the only tree in that tiny back yard. Or Mark putting a sardine on a cookie to see if that would make me like them better. Sleeping outside in that giant patio he built that no one every ate in , but we slept in it all summer. My entire childhood into young adulthood is tangled in Palominos - we were all close in age. We lost touch a bit as everyone grew up, apart, but never completely. As I get older I start to lose people., some of my classmates, friends, grandparents pass on. I am more aware this year of the passage of time, when I think to where I would have liked my life to stay - The long hot days when we talked all night between the houses, discussing what we were going to do tomorrow until our parent's or theirs told us (again) to go to sleep. Or the year Kim, Liz, Richard and I became best friends, we lived at each other's houses.  I guess the years the boys were old enough to cart around and young enough to enjoy it. Those endless summers of the beach at the end of the road, Mel was alive, Adam and Jackson had their posse to play with all day. Setsu, Mikio and Ray were well. We had enough money - things were looking up. Jackson's senior year when we lived in Maidsville, Pearl was healthy, the hunting was good, I thought I had everything. So many shining moments.So many wonderful, happy memories.  And yet so many more to come.