54 years apart
A wink across time and space
My mom was in town this week.
We spent a day at the Phillips Academy archive together, sorting through my grandfather’s personal papers. She was making her way through records of her sister’s illness. I was reading tributes published after his death.
The February 1972 edition of the Andover magazine was dedicated to him. His flag-draped coffin at the front of the chapel fills the cover. I can pick out my family members in the first few rows.
After reading the twenty-two pages of tribute to his service, followed, as per custom, by class notes for each graduating class, I for some reason kept flipping to the back.
And then I found it.
Page 48.
A photograph taken from exactly the same spot where I stood last Thursday — the edge of Rabbit Pond, the chapel steeple reflected in still water.
54 years apart. Same angle. Same reflection.
Makes me think someone is winking at me from a distance.
🕊️
SAM
