I try, most days, not to dread anything. It never changes a thing except that is drains the joy from the day. Yet here it is, Tuesday morning.  This day they will pack everything up and head back home.  This is the bittersweet moment that I will commit to memory every single thing that has filled my heart with so much love over the past few days. Every laugh, little boy giggle, hug and kiss, and every book read, with him snuggled up next to me will live in my memories.

To everything, turn, turn turn…there is a season, turn, turn, turn. To get a taste of life, complete with grandbaby hugs, is more than I’d ever have imagined. This Christmas season, made ever sweeter with my babies and theirs here with me.

Last night we celebrated Christmas together. Noah and Beth created a dinner of prime rib, fresh green beans and mashed potatoes and it was just delicious. We opened a couple bottles of red wine and took our time enjoying it all.

After dinner, it was time to open up the presents. We sat around the tree and I passed out the packages. Brayden had been so excited all day, having to wait and wait and Wait!!! He’d eyed the long, wrapped package with his name on it…walked straight to it, and plucked it up from among the other gifts. When he opened it the excitement was tangible. It was a Fortnight Nerf gun and it had extra “bullets”!!! Uncle Noah and Aunt Beth had found the perfect gift.

It reminded me of the Christmas Story when Ralphie got that gun he’d been wanting…the magic that lives in the eyes of a little boy that unwraps a toy like that reminds me, once again,   of the Christmas mornings that found my children sitting ‘round the tree. And if I am still long enough to search my heart, yes, I am with my sisters, sitting ‘round the tree, with the same hopping, jumping thrill and excitement of the miracle called Christmas morning. The very same joyful anticipation lives in each generation. Its hope and love wrapped in pretty paper.  

My heart is full and I am so very happy. The only thing that could’ve made it even better would have had Courtney, Carsten, and Cora sitting with us around that tree. Jackson and Cora and Brayden could’ve played together and created memories of their own. The cousin kind of memories. Those cousin memories are stronger than steel. My childhood memories are full of those. It’s how we learned to share. It’s how I learned to throw cinders far and fast enough to hit him square in the back!!!! Now THAT is talent!!! (sorry Jeff)

And Courtney and Carsten could’ve been sitting with us, telling stories and laughing until way past time to go to bed.

I’m trying to keep my heart above water, as the time clicks by and they have to go. I miss them already, and they’re still here. It’ll be time for me to go back to work in the glass studio and make up for all of the work I’ve chosen to sit aside, in exchange for every single drop of joy I’ve collected over these past few days. I think I’ll surprise Beth with a hot Starbucks for her last morning here. I love them so very much. It’s just part of hello, sometimes….saying good-bye. I’m so very thankful to have shared this time with them. I’ll cherish the memories always.