Vol. 41 - Happy Halloween

On lifelong friends

It was Halloween last night and as sundown neared, a bunch of the neighborhood parents with kids under five met up in our driveway before we headed out into the neighborhood as one big mass of costumed joy. And while a few of the couples had one kid (playing what Emily and I call “zone defense”), most of us had at least two (more of a “man-to-man concept”). Considering the matchups, each couple broke down along similar lines; one parent inevitably up ahead chasing the older kid as they dashed from house to house, the other parent behind pushing the younger baby (or babies) in a stroller full of discarded costume bits, bottles of water, and maybe a libation or two.

As the older kids darted from house to house, filling their plastic Jack-O’-Lantern buckets to their capacities, we parents made as much small talk as we could while still keeping watchful eyes on our sugar-soaked kids.

Somewhere between houses, conversation shifted to holiday plans and I explained to one of the other dads how one of my lifelong best friends is coming to visit in a few weeks with his family. As I told him how Louie and I met in preschool and have remained close for the last four decades, my attention shifted to our children, just up the road from us, who are now the same age as Louie and I were when we met.

And as our kids sprinted up the next driveway, I wondered which of these children, if any, my son will still be friends with in thirty-six years. And for the first time in a long time, my focus shifted back to myself.

I thought of the relationship Louie developed with my parents over his life and I wondered if I’ll have the same relationship with any of these kids as I become an old man. I wondered if they would be there for my fiftieth and sixtieth birthdays as Louie was for my father’s.

I thought of Louie coming to visit my mother a few months before she died, knowing this would be the last time he’d ever see her and I wondered if any of these kids would know me that well and for that long and if they’d have the capacity to come say goodbye.

It’s impossible to tell now and unlikely that my son will have as close a relationship as Louie and I have had for nearly forty years with all of the neighborhood kids. Families move. Kids grow apart. Things happen.

But as I watched Spider-Man chase a glowing princess to the next house, I thought maybe one of these kids will stay in my life forever, just as Louie has in mine and my father’s and my mother’s. And maybe in thirty-six years, as I watch that little boy or little girl dress his own baby up for Halloween, I’ll remind them of those nights all those years ago, when they were just babies themselves and me and their dad used to chase them through the neighborhood, yelling for them to say thank you or to watch out for an oncoming car. And I’ll remember a picture of me and Louie, one a cop, the other a crook, each of us handcuffed to the other as we dressed up for our kindergarten Halloween parade some time a thousand years ago, back when we were just babies, back when we were sure we’d be friends forever, even though we had no idea how rare that would be.