Cole was not available when the final photo was taken on May 13.
“I’ve got a story for you,” the man said as we were leaving Willow Avenue School. People often have things they want to tell us. Not all are worth sharing. But you have to listen.
It was 2006 when Marty Reilly told us that there were four sets of boy-girl twins in the second grade. It seemed unusual to have that many in a school with less than 70 students per grade.
We didn’t jump on the story but we didn’t forget it. “Got to get a picture of those kids,” we said every time we saw Mr. Reilly. Then suddenly we were running out of time. The twins were fourth-graders who were about to move up to the middle school.
We met in the Willow Avenue auditorium for a photograph, and repeated the process every four years. On each occasion, we used the old pictures as a guide, so each person stayed in the same position.
Our most recent session was on May 13. The 12th-graders looked at their old pictures and laughed — perhaps not realizing how much they had changed. The last four years had made a difference, more than the four years before that.
Before taking the picture, we asked the students for their plans. They didn’t offer specifics, but it was clear that they were heading in different directions. This would be the final photograph of the series.