I don’t have many pictures of my Mom and Dad with him wearing a suit and tie. This one is special because they have all of their Grandchildren at that time with them in this picture. This picture was taken on Easter, March 29, 1970. Jennifer was born about a month later.
Mom and Dad enjoyed having all the Grandkids over for special events and you can see their Easter Baskets on the porch for the egg hunt after the picture-taking was over. Mom would cook a big meal and try to include something that everyone liked. There would be ham, candied yams, casseroles, and several desserts. Mom’s kitchen was small and with the extra help, the kitchen got even smaller. The Grandkids sat at the small table in the kitchen and the adults filled their plates and found a place to sit and eat.
That was a day we could get together as The Ray Family and enjoy sharing the day and stories. The kids would spend most of the day outside playing and the women would clean dishes and put away food. Those days were special and just a few years later in 1978, we would lose our Dad to lung cancer and things would always be just a little different for all of us.
Those little children in this picture now are adults and with children of their own and some have Grandchildren. The Ray Family is much larger today, but it is also much harder to get them back together as a family. So many stories to share, but the distance apart has grown much wider today. This is all too normal in today’s world, but I wonder if perhaps we have let something special drift away.
