We got together to celebrate my sister Dory’s 40th birthday. Dory’s in black. Frannie’s at bottom right. Karen is left, and Elisabetjh is next to her. My brothers-in-law, Jim and Jack, are back right.

My sister Frannie has been on a mission lately.

She wants some sort of hard copy to chronicle our family.

It’s been years now that Fran, Dory and I have been on our own, Bialczak-wise. Our parents, Dolores and Frank, have been gone for a decade now. Frank was an only child. Mom’s older sister, Aunt Marian, and our beloved Uncle Chet, well, they went a half-decade after our mom and dad.

It’s on us.

Frannie went to those online ancestry sites to try to find out more, but discovered a harsh flaw. You had to give them information to get more information. She quickly hit the wall there.

So my dear middle sister turned to family friends. The Carrs lived two doors down from us in the leafy Long Island ‘burb of Stony Brook, their big brood sharing life with us three Bialczaks. The Carr kids — they’ll always be the Carr kids in my mind, oh, all these years later — pointed Frannie to Mom Carr. She likes digging into family history. And she agreed to focus on ours.

I sent Frannie a big note detailing names of uncles and aunts and cousins from my foggy past.

Mom Carr is putting together Frannie’s Bialczak book. And she needs more.

More photos, of me, my daughter, my wife. I will find some, although all of late are in digital form, never in hard copy.

And she wants memories, from Frannie, Dory and I. In Mom Carr’s words:

” … dig way back in (your) memories for some nice or some funny things … about Mom and Dad or themselves and their siblings.”

I have some thinking to do. I’m the oldest of us three. That’s a blessing and a curse. More years to stack up memories. More years to have them fade, too.

Thanks, Frannie.