A lifetime of Second Chances

I was lucky to have grown up on Miami Beach in the fifties..It was a small town then, there was  only one  Jr/Sr high school and two elementary schools.....

Long sunny days on the beautiful sandy beaches were our playground and where our activities took place when school was out....during school hours we all knew each other in one way or another...sure there were the problems of growing up, the clicks, the teenage anxieties, the rich kids and not so rich....my family moved to different apartments every 2 years, financially motivatied for the most part..But, we never moved far and always within the same few blocks so the friends I had always remained nearby.... many of those same friendships remain to this day.

My husband has a special group of friends who  grew up together, also on Miami Beach..they play poker every week and what a poker game that is.....these men are my friends too and we, they and their wives, the ones that are married, all get together for special occasions...

One just occurred yesterday

A Little History---

This poker game is notorious on the Beach to those that live there and know some of the participants...it is also known how much these men mean to one another and have since they were boys.  Just walk down any street with one of them and they will point out where they hung out, what alleys they roamed around in, their initial marks still carved on some of the sidewalks, behind all the glittery shops and boutique hotels that make up what is now the "NEW SOUTH BEACH."

Five years ago one of the guys had a sudden heart attack and died immediatelly....it was a shock to us all...the card game was even mentioned in his obituary....He and his wife were really good friends of ours and she was, and still is, a good friend of mine as we have known each other since we were about 15/16 years old...so you can imagine what a shock it truly was.

Then about 2 years ago, she started going for walks on the beach as exercise and ran into one of the men from the game...they lived near one another and made it a habit of doing these walks on a daily basis..his name is Bob...her husband was named Bobby

Well, I guess you can figure out where this little article is going...soon they started going out, first a dinner, movie, etc...It was a bit strange at first when they would arrive at parties together for us, the "old Friends"  but it soon became normal to see them together..(Did I mention he also grew up on the beach and was in the card game?)

Well, yesterday we went to their wedding...It as a beautiful affair, set in a private club located right beside the beach were we all grew up....watching them under their Chuppa, with their grown children beside them, one of the sons looking exactly like his father, our friend Bobby, it was almost eerie, but he was so happy for his mother, that she had found a new love and shared that love with all the  family and friends who loved them both...who loved all three of them..we gathered there, thinking about our departed friend yet cheering on this new couple, and their new devotion to each other..

The bright sun was still shining, the waves still rolling in on the beach, our beach, the  beach where we grew up, the beach that will be home to this new couple who have had a second chance at love, a second chance in so many ways...my heart is so happy for them all...