At night, my aunts, Mom and Grandma don’t appear in my dreams — so I go searching for them there. I rarely find them.
So, throughout the day, I remember them. I try to imagine what they would say, if they heard the boys say this or that. I think of them, and how much I love them. Not, how much I miss them. I am, instead, overwhelmed with the realization of how much I love them, and how much of my day needs the indwelling of their presence. Yet, it is strangely missing.
I know why this is happening. My oldest son will not be here next here. He will be at college. There isn’t a lunch I don’t eat myself, and wonder, how will he eat next year at this time. But in reality, I know I will miss his presence. And this, is something I know about all too well.
It makes me glad, in a way, that I do know, before my son leaves for college, what it means to lose someone close. To miss the 2 cents they would have added to the unfolding dramas of the day. To know, they are here. And, there is that bittersweet moment, just before you drift off to sleep, when you can say, just for today — we are all safe, together, tucked under our blankets, under one roof — and knowing this too shall pass.
This wisdom makes watching him row across the river,
while his little brothers wrestle in the grass,
one of the sweetest memories I have stored in my heart.