ONCE

I've posted this before, but it's a favorite old photo as it shows me and my entire, living, immediate family on our back porch toward the end of World War Two, yet obviously mostly happy. My father, Jimmy, looking like a film noir character; my brother Tommy in his Army Air Corps uniform (he would later become Father Campion, Franciscan friar, missionary in Japan for almost his entire adult life); my brother Robert (his middle name, first name William); my mother, Irene, holding me; and my brother "Buddy" (real name James, who would shortly join the Navy and be on Okinawa when the final battles were fought); my sisters Joan (in dark coat); and Irene (in light coat). All gone except for Irene and me. But all still very much alive in my heart (despite some times of dissension among us, all healed now).