THE BUDDY CARD

“Dad was an only child, Larry was like his brother.”

Uncle Larry was my mom’s cousin. But even before my parents married, Larry and my dad were family. They met in high school, in Mt. Vernon, New York. Dad was an only child, Larry was like his brother. They were in clubs and activities together, they hung out with their crew. Dad never knew his father, Larry tried to help find him. When Dad decided to leave the University of Denver, where he had a full football scholarship, to join the Navy, Larry tried to talk him out of it. And if not for Larry, Dad probably wouldn’t have ended up with Mom. They got to know each at Larry’s wedding, just after Dad’s honorable discharge. 

Mom and Dad started going out in June and were married a year later, when she was 21 and he was 27. Dad was a big teddy bear, roughly 6'3'' and 200 pounds. We used to eat salami and watch football together. Once when my sister and I had an incident over her tricycle, I pushed her into a wall and she bit and bloodied her lip. That was the first and only time Dad spanked me. After he got home from taking her to the hospital, he woke me up to apologize. He was a big teaser and fun to be around. At any party, he really stirred things up. He was my everything.

He died of a heart attack in 1975, due to a severe reaction to medication. He had just completed his degree at John Jay College, going to school at night and working as a New York City court officer during the day. My sister was four, I was two weeks from turning nine. 

Larry stepped in to care for his buddy’s girls. He had two girls of his own, and the four of us were raised like sisters. Erica was only two weeks older than me. We travelled together (Sag Harbor, Barbados, Jamaica, skiing in the Poconos), spent holidays together, complained about our sisters together, put on productions for the family together, watched Miss America together, talked about boyfriends together (Uncle Larry was much more conservative than my mom). Erica was always there for me. Larry was always there for us.  When my dad’s mother died, he spoke at her funeral about how much he’d loved her brownies. 

Uncle Larry died in 2015, the second father I lost. Afterwards Erica told me she had set aside some of his belongings for me. She presented me with a few items from Larry’s travels to Africa—reminders of the motherland I’ve never visited and am not sure I ever will. And then she handed me a card. I didn’t recognize the writing. It was a Christmas card, mailed to her father from the USS Taconic in December 1961. On the back was a note: Hi Fella, I don’t mean to be gooey, but it seems to me, as I reflect back through the years, that you are in most of the memorable moments of my life. Just want to thank you for making them so. Your Buddy Always, John

It is almost 60 years since my father wrote that note. Thank god Uncle Larry kept it. Thank god Erica saved it for me. The card was touched by my father’s hands, my uncle’s hands, and Erica’s hands, my sister-cousin who died in 2019. I think of it as a beautiful expression of friendship—between my dad and hers, between her and me. I will always treasure the wonderful things Erica gave me from the motherland. But with the card, she also gave me a precious window into father land, the shared world of these two men we both loved.

—Lisa Ward