I am sure things stick in your memory as they do in mine.

My parents home on Blackburn Road was the most open home you could imagine.

Strangers were simply people whom you were yet to know.

Week in, week out, on a Sunday our home was open to a flow of family and friends who stayed for lunch and then often stayed for dinner after and afternoon around the pool. All of this occurred while my parents also ran their grocery shop at the front of our property and to which our home was attached.

Often there’d be a dozen or even twenty people for Sunday lunch and my parents were never alarmed when new people showed up, often unannounced.

One couple, apparently our mother’s distant cousins, were regulars. Harold and Muad (of course not their real names) were known for their wealth and their beach-side home in an affluent part of the city. 

Harold and Maud were regulars, coming Sunday after Sunday for lunch, often staying for dinner. 

After my parents sold the grocery shop and after my mother’s death, dad let me know he’d dropped in to see the cousins while out on a Sunday afternoon drive to ease his loneliness.

“Can you come back later, we are having lunch,” said Harold.

As far as I know, Dad never returned.

Not ever.