Reminisce

The room that I work in is a disaster zone. We refer to it as the junk room, and rightly so! It’s supposed to be the dining room in our house, but it’s a very small room. To make matters worse, we have a gigantic table in it that crowds the whole room. Jerry bought this table – solid walnut antique – for like nothing in a yard sale. The room (and primarily the table) is where everyone comes in and piles junk they don’t want to put away – coats, backpacks, mail, magazines, gym bags, books…you name it, it’s in there.

We have never been a family that sits at a table and eats together – ever! It’s a long story and I tried to make changes when it was time to teach the twins some table manners, but I failed miserably. For one reason, our schedules have always been too hectic. Another reason, Jerry is funny about food and always wanted to eat when HE wants to eat, not at some scheduled dinner-time. It was never a family dinner like you see on TV; none of us really wanted to sit together for dinner.  It’s sort of pointless for us to have a dining room because we have no need for one. In fact, the only time any of us sits with another one of us to eat is when we’re in a restaurant.

So, finally, I have been cleaning the clutter from this room. I came across a small box of old photos, my family photos. I have only a few of these – that’s another long story. Anyway, I found this one of my brothers and me – taken at Christmas obviously when I was home on Christmas break from college. M (holding the cat) is 18, I am 19, and R is 20. I know our ages because of my shirt – I joined an honor society my freshman year thinking it would look good on a resume someday, and I liked the looks of Greek letters. The honor society was pointless and rather stupid – I got the tee-shirt for joining, went to the first (and last) meeting, and left early to meet friends for some serious beer drinking.

The photo is old and faded, like most of the photos in the box. I scanned it because it’s obviously deteriorating and it may be the only picture in existence of the three of us together after we left home.   R looks so good in this photo, nothing like he does now as an alcoholic/drug addict/killing himself every day.   He wants no part of recovery….he won’t be with us too much longer, not at the pace he’s going.