A Blast from the Past!

I got a surprise friend request on my Facebook account from one of the daughters (there are six) of a couple of my best friends while they were stationed here at Cannon AFB. I last saw this family when the oldest graduated from high school out in California several years ago. That was the first time I had seen them since they transferred to Japan in 1997-ish. The timing was great because I was back and home visiting and I was able to meet up with them and attend the eldest's graduation. I was also able to meet the last 2 additions (including my god daughter) to the family who had been born since they left New Mexico. Now, the fourth daughter is getting ready to graduate high school. When the family left New Mexico, this young lady was a feisty toddler. Geez, I feel so old! LOL!

There were a core of four families: my own, these friends, my cousin's family and another family. We used to do so much together probably the most memorable being a caravan up to Santa Fe to take the kids (8 total for all the families) to the Children's Museum there. We'd rotate houses to have potlucks or parties, we'd take the kids on walks on the fitness trail (but these walks were supposed to the moms exercise...yeah, right!). We were just really tight.

I'm just sitting here reminiscing about those days. They saw me in my earliest stages of the bipolar disorder and even in a severe enough depression that they feared for my life and called an ambulance. We saw our kids grow up together for several years. The fact that we were mostly Filipino, of course, meant that all the adults were automatically "auntie" or "uncle." We all became each other's surrogate families since our own blood family, aside from my cousin, wasn't around. Heck, even my cousin and I had only met by chance while they were here. My mother had told me I had a cousin whose husband was stationed here but if I remember correctly it wasn't until the mother of the young lady who contacted me introduced us to each other. I may be a little foggy on that, but that's how I remember it anyway.

I really miss those days. To have a close knit group of people that you could count on at anytime. I have a few friends now that I could confide in but they each have their own things going on. But there's nothing like our little band of families was. We were a family whether related by blood or not. I can't wait until one day when we can all have a reunion and have all of us on one place again, even if for just a day or two...