Recently, I spent some time with the only people, besides my parents, who have lived near me and known me my whole life. There is a very different relationship with peers who know all my stories, share my memories, consider my mom their other mom, as I consider theirs mine. Not many of our memories are recorded, but there is one photo of the 5 of us that has always captured our relationship. Referred to as “The Photo”, it’s an image I have always known, although I don’t remember the actual photo being taken.

That’s me on the end…. age 2, and my brother at the front, age 5. Also 5, then 4 then 3 are the sisters we grew up with, our parents best friends, our families mirror images in a lot of ways.

Recently, we talked about recreating The Photo as a gift for our moms.  Not our original idea– social media is rife with these sorts of photo re-visitations– but 48 years seemed enough time to lapse between photo ops.

Even though the original is in black and white, for some reason we all thought that the pants I wore in the original were red.  So we assembled one afternoon, on the vacant lot that was the site of our home, and with as close an approximation of wardrobe, attitude and accommodation for height differences as possible, we recreated the moment, a freeze frame of us, 48 years in the past.

Here’s the thing, though.  It became so, so much more than just a novelty photo. Reconnecting, laughing, “breaking into” the vacant lot, rapid fire conversations, avoiding talk of health concerns, births and deaths, loss of all kinds, but aware of the 5 divergent paths of our lives.

And what a lot of joy there is in sharing a surprise of this extent.

It proved sadly impossible to get all of us together to present the gifts to our moms, but a few weeks after the second photo was taken, and my brother had edited, mounted and framed the separated-by-48-years photos, 4 out of 5 of us collected together with our moms to present the gift that was more than memories, more than kitschy fun. More than just any red pants.

Here are the moms, who share more than just a friendship: