The First Big Reunion Picnic

By 2008 the family had sprawled across three boroughs and two time zones. We decided on a picnic in Flushing Meadows — the same park where Mom and Dad had wandered after their wedding nearly forty years earlier.

Sophia was ten and appointed herself photographer. Lucas brought a soccer ball. Noah, only three, spent most of the day asleep on Aisha's shoulder.

Wei tended the lawn chairs. Carmen arranged the photo albums like a museum exhibit. Miguel took the group portrait that still hangs in Carmen's hallway — slightly crooked, everyone squinting into the sun, perfect.

We have held a reunion every other August since. The guest list grows. The feeling does not.