From Christmas past

The Sepia Saturday meme is taking a break this Saturday.
I'm not.

Here's a picture of my older son when he was a teen, visiting out of town grandparents.
He was pretty unhappy that Christmas, as was his younger brother (not in picture here).  Back-story time, at least my best guess here about 30 years later.  My sister (below holding my baby) and her two children (much younger) lived with my parents...and my parents had plenty of time to know what those grandchildren wanted for Christmas.  My sons lived a long way away, and we drove to visit the grandparents.

So instead of my two older sons having a great Christmas, it was a bit of a let-down.  They were used to having lots of toys for themselves, and instead these cousins had all the junk!  Plus their father (my ex) had the income, and would provide lots of things for them, and I couldn't.

I didn't think that this would happen, or of course I'd have made sure to have more under the tree for them.  But I also had my mind focused on other things, like having my third son on my own.  Children don't have any concept of what their parents are going through, and I forgot that.  So my parent's reactions also were also not in my conscious knowledge.

My parents didn't approve of my son's long hair (which in 1979 was really cool).  I know my father would have liked to take hair clippers to those locks that looked a lot like the Beatles.  So this was a typical visit with family that had lots of strained emotions.

I also post these pictures in memory of my nephew, Zachery, who took his life this year (when he was much older).  He's the blond in the red shirt.  

Our time together is so precious.