� a day on the lake. � 2005-12-08 � 10:14 p.m. �
My friend was sending my some family pictures... and she sends me one of her nephew (her sister's boy) in the arms of a gorgeous man....
Insantly my mind is taken back to a time when I was 7 or 8... at a lake in northern New York... sitting on the edge of a sailboard... the same face standing at the sails...
I can't remember a lot of this time... just that I felt safe with this kid... and that I was having fun... He was interesting and didn't ignore me the way the other boys did... and he even let me stand at the sails with him. I felt proud, for a moment, that I - the kid who could barely do anything other than walk and run - was wind sailing. I felt important.
I didn't remember his name... but I remember that my parents had gone away and left me, and my brothers with this kid's mother and her boys... and she, I remember, was my inspiration to be a journalist. She was one.
I remember dangling my feet off the board and catching a clam shell as we got shallow or a fish hook or something I remember my flesh tearing clear across my sole. I cried with the sting and this kid, in his gentleness, stepped off the board, scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the picnic table where his mother dressed my foot. He spent the rest of the day with me in the sand making castles... while the other boys went about their games.
I could sense he was kind and he had a fondness for me.
My mind fades back to the present and the photo of man and baby
"Who is the guy holding J?"
"Sash... my brother."
"He reminds me of a kid I knew when I was 7 or 8...." and I tell her the story of the day at the lake.
"But I don't remember his name... they had a big house in Frelisburg with an inground pool and the scariest second floor and staircase I've seen."
"Yeah," she says... and she spits out these names.... "They're my cousins."
Well who knew.
I've known this girl since the eightth grade and you'd think at some point I would have known that boy was her cousin...
That explains the resemblance and the flood of memory....
I wonder if he remembers me... and the day at the lake.
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