Rivera Family Reunion (example memory)

Forty-one Riveras and in-laws, three grills, and one shade tree that everyone agreed to fight over. The reunion started, as it always does, with Grandpa Walter’s rule: nobody eats until the family picture is taken. It took twenty minutes, four phones, and Kevin’s tripod, and Noah slept through all of it.

By noon the kids had organized a soccer game with rules only they understood, the grown-ups were losing badly at dominoes, and Grandma Ellie had “just a little” potato salad — for forty. Someone brought out the old photo album, and for an hour the whole table went quiet, passing around pictures of Sam as a toddler and Rosa in her garden.

We talked about who wasn’t there, and who was, and how lucky it is to still have this many people in one place. Next year: same park, same tree.