Campfires are all about reflection.

There’s the glow from the faces that are framed against the night. All are united, held together within the casting heat and circle of light.

There also are inner reflections. Between shared smiles, a loud laugh now and then, and favorite songs mixed with fireside chatter, those faces return to the flickering flames, pulled into moments of introspection. Reflecting on whatever. It’s personal.

Once a year, I sit around such a campfire. It caps a long day in the sun full of friends and family, good food and loud fun, including volleyball. I’ve been doing this since 1978, when my parents said I could invite coworkers to a much-needed two-day party at their home in the country.

We call it the Lost Weekend, which has been locked into the Labor Day holiday since that first year. The Saturday night rolls into a Sunday morning country breakfast and more volleyball for those who had pitched a tent.

Some of the regulars I see this one time a year. A lot of traditions develop from such an annual gathering. Our campfire still ends in a sing-along with Frank Sinatra crooning into the starry night and nearby cornfield the life-guiding lyrics of “My Way.”

Yeah, lots of traditions and memories, with the campfire bumping the top of those lists. But there has been a slow but steady shift from those early days.

The raucous volleyball matches always mix young and old. I worry about my bones being too old for my ball-hog ways. So I’ve become an observer who truly misses the earlier days.

Even the campfire is a bit tougher now. Too many of those glowing faces are now ghosts – gaps in the circle but not forgotten. They charge our memories of previous years and stories retold. They are toasted with raised glasses around the fire.

After 47 years, such losses were inevitable. Still, it’s hard to adapt. The tide of time pushes and pulls and has washed over our Lost Weekend. The biggest change came when my parents died.

Mom and Dad had no idea what they said “yes” to so many years ago. But they soon learned. Everyone who came to the Lost Weekend became part of their “family.”

My sister has packed a lot of our memories into four large albums jammed with photos and thank-you notes, and copies of the goofy invites I sent out every year.

I watched three sons grow up on our homemade volleyball courts. The youngest came from the hospital straight to the Lost Weekend, two days after he was born. This past holiday weekend, I watched him standing tall at the net, dominating.

Mom let us know about the work involved in setup and cleanup each year. Then we faced the annual question: Should we do it again next year? Of course. How could we not? We asked the same question after my parents died. Got the same answer.

But it’s not the same Lost Weekend that began so long ago, when it took a week for my muscles to recover. Now the ache is internal. Without my parents, it’s been hard to resume my enthusiasm. And the loss of others deepens the rut, including the recent death of my niece, who continued hosting the party with her husband.

I search for reasons to be there each year … until I get there. The regulars begin to trickle in, some new faces show up, and I see there is still a Lost Weekend “family.” I need to see that, and they probably do also.

It all sinks in, the reason for being there, to continue. I see it clearly in the faces glowing around the campfire. Then I turn to the fire and relive that first year and the stack of years after and all the faces that have come and gone … and those still coming.

Will we do this again next year? I mull the thought only to invite the reply: Of course we will. How could we not?

• Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His PaperWork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail the NewsTribune, 426 Second St., La Salle IL 61301.