{"id":666,"date":"2012-09-16T09:47:03","date_gmt":"2012-09-16T13:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=666"},"modified":"2012-09-19T06:17:38","modified_gmt":"2012-09-19T10:17:38","slug":"happy-birthday-until-we-meet-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/16\/happy-birthday-until-we-meet-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday until we meet again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saying goodbye is hard for everyone, but is particularly hard for Jett, who has a large, close-knit family. She originally had 7 siblings. Three sisters are gone now, but two sisters and two brothers remain. The older brother, George, lives in Rockport, MA, which Jett regards as her “home town,” despite the fact that she only spent summers there. But it is a beautiful spot and one which is hard to leave. George, always a homebody, is barely mobile now and you would have to strap him to the back of the commuter train to get him “over the bridge” and out of town.<\/p>\n

Which is why he is the only one of Jett’s four living siblings who didn’t make it to the party hosted yesterday by younger brother Ray at his bucolic cottage in New Salem, MA.\u00a0 The occasion was a combination 60th birthday party for Ray (who isn’t actually 60 until next month but wanted us to share in his cake) and a farewell-until-we-meet-again party for us.\u00a0 Also in attendance were Jett’s sisters Sybil and Christine, Christine’s husband John and Raymond’s lovely wife Kim.\u00a0 We brought our dogs, who are always welcome at Ray’s cottage, and they took advantage of their rare off-the-leash opportunity to race around his expansive yard with youthful exuberance.\u00a0 The cottage is so far off the beaten path that we had no worries about them running into the street; the only danger was a risk of an unexpected encounter with a moose or porcupine, or perhaps being swooped up by an eagle.\u00a0 But nothing bad happened and they ended the evening tired but very, very happy.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the humans were chit-chatting away, snacking on a variety of hors d’oeuvres, sipping wine and trying very hard to balance the happiness of the birthday event with the sadness of the farewell event.\u00a0 Some poignant toasts were made at dinner and some heartfelt gifts were distributed afterward.\u00a0 The goodbyes were teary – especially with Christine who was leaving in the morning to visit her son in Texas.\u00a0 But the farewells with the others will occur today, after we meet for brunch.<\/p>\n

Then, I expect, Jett will have a good bawl in private.<\/p>\n

None of my family, which is not so close-knit, made it to this event.\u00a0 However, I will see my son Tony, his significant other Krystle and their lovely daughter (and my granddaughter) Liliani today.\u00a0 There could be a few tears there, too.<\/p>\n

\"Jett,<\/a>

Jett, Sybil, Kim and Christine<\/p><\/div>\n

\"John,<\/a>

John, Ray and Sparky<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Christine<\/a>

Christine and Jett<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The expansive yard<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The siblings, Ray, Sybil and Jett<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Backyard driftwood art<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saying goodbye is hard for everyone, but is particularly hard for Jett, who has a large, close-knit family. She originally had 7 siblings. Three sisters are gone now, but two sisters and two brothers remain. The older brother, George, lives in Rockport, MA, which Jett regards as her “home town,” despite the fact that she … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-places-ma","category-places","category-preparation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-aK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}