Complete Home

The Lewis house was complete all of last week as Shannon was back for a while.  For us to be all together is something that I took for granted when the kids were all still at home.  Our children were always part of the things that Tim and I did.  Rarely did we leave them with babysitters - maybe a couple of hours at most.  Even our wedding anniversary celebrations were brightened with the presence the kids. There were only three occasions when our anniversary was without a child with us: two years before we had kids and the one year (nine years ago or so) when Tim surprised me with a trip to Seattle.  I thought we were going on a lunch date until we were already at the airport parking lot - I was helpless at that point.  I spent the whole first night in the beautiful Edgewater Hotel sleepless, staring at the water thinking about my children.  In other words, we love our kids and we like being with them.

When Shannon went to college, it was the beginning and the end of many things.  Not only Shannon will be gone again but come September 22, 2013, Brahms will also be out of the house. What's the world coming to!  How will the three of us (Tim, Miriam and I) make this huge house feel lived-in?  Already Shannon's room feels like a ghost-room and soon Brahms' will be too.

Miriam worries about not having her siblings with her.  The thing is she is not remaining young or small - in fact she's also growing up.  Earlier this month she traveled alone as a young adult to go visit her sister in Irvine.  Soon she'll also be able to go see her brother alone in the not-so-far-away Davis. What will Tim and I do when they will all be gone?  But we're not there yet. Whew!

In the meantime, we thank God and celebrate the less-frequent times when we are all together in one place sharing jokes and stories that we all can groan or laugh at.  With the few times that we are all together I feel warm in my heart.  We play games, eat comfort food and fast food, watch old episode of Warehouse 13, murder mysteries, and even Adventure Time.  This time Tim also played Jedi Outcast with the kids when he succeeded in having the four computers to talk to each other.

Yesterday, we drove once more to the airport to drop her off.  Now we will once again set the table with four, not five, place settings.