My 9 year old son is at his friend Brady's today.
Yesterday, my father took my son and Brady to the movies, and then the boys went to Brady's dad's house and had a sleepover. This morning, they are out to breakfast with Brady's grandfather.
If you had told me 10 years ago that my son would be out to breakfast with Brady's grandfather, I would have laughed hysterically.
Brady's grandparents were close friends with my mother and father back when they were married. We went on vacation with them, had Sunday dinners at their house, and spent tons of time with them. The reason my parents bought a motel is because Brady's grandparents owned one and convinced them they should too. I was friendly with the S boys - Brady's grandparents had three who were a little bit older than me - and we were like a big happy family.
Until we weren't anymore. One day, it all stopped. With no explanation, it just ended. We no longer spent time with them or talked to them.
I was little, and I didn't really wonder too much about it. When I was 12, though, and my parents started their divorce, with the nasty accusations of infidelity, I started wondering. When a second family friendship disappeared just as quickly, with just as little explanation, my fears were confirmed. This is why my parents were no longer friends with the S's.
I asked my dad one day, when he was in the throes of his messy divorce, why were not friends with the S's anymore. He told me, in perhaps the inappropriate way that sealed our boundary crossing ways for life, that there was some switching of partners and it led, not unpredictably, to a destruction of the friendship.
I took that in much in the same way that I took in most of my family's unsavory secrets. I thought they were fucked up, but it had nothing to do with me. I was a mini-adult - twelve years old, mothering my heartbroken father while trying to process information that any twelve year old (even a mature, intelligent one) cannot truly process.
So, my dad had his locker close to Mr. S's for 30 years at the YMCA - and they never talked. They saw each other close to 5 times per week for all that time, and they never acknowledged each other. They maintained an icy truce of pretending the other didn't exist.
Until one day, Mr. S. asked to speak to my dad, and they made up. I don't think there was any big apologies or anything - it was more like, "This is stupid. We have been ignoring each other for 30 years. Water under the bridge and all..."
And, now they are friends. Not best friends, but they have gone to Yankee games together. My dad went to one of the son's weddings. We have been invited to Superbowl parties at their motel. When my grandmother died, the S's were present at the wake, the post wake eating frenzy, the funeral, and the post funeral dinner. Just like that, it was all, if not forgotten, at least shelved.
And now, my son is friends with a S boy of the next generation.
How bizarre.
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