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Boy#4, Husband, and my Younger Younger Brother have incessantly whined about occasionally pointed out an injustice of life: Their presence in the world is not nearly as documented as those of their older siblings.
They may have a point.
All of these wonderful men are the youngest in their families, and the youngest almost always is woefully underrepresented in non-group family photos. That was especially true in the days when those men were photogenically young, before smartphones let moms carry their cameras in their pockets.
The beautiful brunette in today's picture could make the same complaint about my practices as a blogger. Back in the day, I introduced every Special Guest that visited the House on the Corner, making sure to ease them into an online presence bit by bit before they were engaged to one of the Boys. Thanks to my unforgivably lazy blogging practices these days, though, today there is no easing:
This is Lovely Girl#4!*
Four years ago last month we were on a dream vacation in Costa Rica. We had hoped that the entire family would be able to go, but Lovely Girl#2 was newly pregnant and Boy#3's teaching schedule made an October vacation impossible. So Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2 joined Husband, Boy#4 and me in a trip that was equal parts Peace Corps Memory Tour and Rich Tourist Vacation. It was awesome.
What we didn't know was that the week before we left Four had gone on his second date with someone he already was suspecting would be special in his life. We talked about every possible topic on that 17-day trip--life, love, politics, career--but because he is inherently cautious he did not mention that the night before we left he had cooked dinner for this woman. In fact, it was months before he told us she existed.
Between Four's caution and Covid shut-downs, it was many more months before we met her in person, even more months before she visited the House on the Corner for the first time.
But, oh, she was worth the wait.
I wish I had blogged those first visits because I don't remember the details. I remember loving her laugh, and being relieved that she was so easy to talk to. I remember finding out that, like Lovely Girls#1 and #2, she is smart and funny and dark-haired and her only sibling is a brother. I remember tearing up as I watched her and Boy#4 together, loving each other.
Since then she has become part of the family. She was the activities director for the all-clan week we spent together last summer, and wrangled spreadsheets and schedules of activities appropriate for ages two to 68. She is the good humor, the huge smile, the hugger and spoiler of all of us.
Four years is a long courtship, though. We gently, then not so gently, encouraged Four. "You know," we told him, "if you two broke up we'd miss you terribly."
Every phone call or visit home we speculated whether this would be the occasion for some kind of announcement. Spoiler: It never was.
Then two weeks ago, they FaceTimed us. They were on their way home from Costa Rica, where Four had finally carried out a romantic tropical proposal at the foot of the volcano near where I had lived more than four decades ago. As the Lovely Girl grinned and held up her be-ringed hand, I shrieked, then cried a little, then smiled and laughed until my face hurt.
Husband was the one who summed up our feelings when he texted her later though.
"It's great you're becoming part of our family, realizing you really are already."
Welcome, Lovely Girl#4. We've been waiting for you.
*I know--she's the third Lovely Girl to join the family, but she is partnered to Boy#4 so she becomes #4.
