Full Circle

About 16 summers ago, I met my parents for an outdoor concert at Grant Park in Chicago.  While I was waiting for them, I saw this cute young family playing nearby.  Little did I know that that family would be in our lives now.  When my parents arrived, I pointed them out and we commented on how cute their boys were (then about 3 and 1).   My mother brought wine, but forgot the corkscrew, so we asked if they had one.  The woman said “How did you get that in here?!  They took ours away!”  Turns out my mother had a pathetic look on her face and the security guard said, “Oh go ahead.”

We shared our wine with them and got to know them better.  Later that evening, my mother called and said “You’re not going to believe this.  We ran into them again in the parking lot and they saw our license plate and told us they were moving to Indiana.  I said, ‘Where?’, and she said ‘Dyer!’ and they are looking for a church near there!”  A few months later, they were attending my parents’ church and Katy was helping my mother at her preschool.

That little one year old I was watching is now graduating from my old high school (Lake Central) where he was the star kicker on the football team.  How strange but great it was to photograph this dashing, blue eyed young man’s senior photos on my old school’s new football field.   Also strange to think that it is the same school where my father started his career as the school’s very first football coach.  Congratulations Austin – go get em’.