THE LATE GREAT

My dad, oldest brother Tommy in uniform, sisters Joan & Irene, Robert, ma, me and Buddy during WWII. Buddy would soon join the Navy before war's end and have that Iwo Jima experience I posted about.

Me & my three brothers (who lived, another died as an infant) after WWII when Tommy became Campion, the Franciscan friar, flanked by Robert to his right and Buddy to his left.

Me in the colorful shirt with my three brothers to my right, Campion, then Buddy then Robert leaning down behind his wife "Sis" next to Buddy's wife Catherine and their firstborn Cathy, my mother behind them and her mother next to her with my sisters Joan, in the pixie cut and Irene and our dad...the only ones still living are Sis, Irene and me, Cathy passed from breast cancer five years ago and her mother was just buried at Arlington cemetery with her husband Jimmy we in the family called Buddy.

My three brothers and me, Robert, Campion (aka Tommy) and Buddy (aka Jimmy) around 1959.

Joan Baribeault, who I lived with in Santa Monica for several years and learned so much from, me in another colorful shirt, my brother Buddy and his wife Catherine the only time they visited me there.
All three gone now, and missed. Life. And the alternative.