Clambake at Eastville Beach

My friend from grad school arrived with his brood--two boys, wife--on Thursday. He and his family have been coming to see us here since our very first summer. It was the perfect excuse for he and I to get together, something that seemed impossible to do when I was in LA. It has been 8 years since we met during our fist semester at grad school and we became friends, much in the way friendships get established--dinners, lunches, thoughtful conversations, sharing of our many ups and downs, and sharing in the celebrations of our lives.

What is wonderful about our relationship is how much our two families blend so well together. He and my husband like each other. I adore his wife. Our kids love one another and play well together. Everyone knows what a unique experience this is for each member of the family to get along with their counterpart in another family. There is nothing worse than to push my husband to get along with the spouse of a good friend of mine when they, so obviously, don't have anything in common other than the friendship between their wives. What's worse than the spousal rejection is that of your child. We have had painful situations where our child couldn't get along with the child of the couple that we adored. And whose child was just a brat, putting a strain on the burgeoning friendship.

Again, it is that combination of timing and chemistry that determines how any of this will happen. Our boys, despite seeing one another only once a year, have this very strong bond. Each are individually so different from the other, but they negotiate these differences without the use of physical fights or temper tantrums. At this point, this annual yearly ritual on the Vineyard is as much for us, the adults, as it is now for our kids. The departure is always sad, a few tears shed, although this time there were promises of trips to visit during the year, all so manageable from Boston to New York.

We usually finish off the weekend with a catered clambake at Eastville Beach, a strip of sand that looks out on to the harbor of Vineyard Haven. We take the food, all of it delicious, to the beach where we throw down large blankets, sand toys, and coolers of wine. The kids wander by the water's edge, setting up games of badminton or just throwing rocks out into the water. It is something my son talks about endlessly during the year, and something he asks to do once we get to the Vineyard.

This year's festivities were cut short by a mishap, a trip to the emergency room, and lots of parental guilt as well as guilt by our friends. Thankfully, it was nothing dire, each of us with enough sense to enjoy the last evening despite it happening. This event, more than the years of affection, showed me how special this friendship was to our lives. These last four days will become another small piece in the mosaic of our two families.

I always dream of growing old with my husband. And there are friends in my life that make me wish for the same thing, to grow old with these people, so that we mark our friendship in decades, not just years.