Growing up, my 84-year-old great uncle and I barely knew each other. Now he's one of my best friends.

My 84-year-old great uncle is now my best friend, even though I didn't know him well when I was growing up. Sean Loera Growing up in the US, I barely knew my great-uncle, who lives in London. In 2014, I spent the summer in his city, and we formed a close relationship. Now, I live in London and he's become one of my closest friends. Growing up in the US, I barely knew my family on the other side of the Atlantic. In my mind, my Uncle Brian was more of a name than a person, and I had only met him a handful of times. Two of those meetings were before I was old enough to remember, and the other two were when I was an angsty high school teenager with not much interest in getting to know someone more than twice my age.