Again – Empty Nest

The vacuum cleaner was full to the top with a summer’s worth of under-the-bed dust bunnies. There was very little time for thorough cleaning – just “a lick and a promise” as my mother used to say about the quick pick-ups before company comes. That meant “a promise to do it right later” and a quick lick now that made things tidy.
Our summer, like most people who live at the shore, consists of nonstop towels-and-sheets laundry, mixed with shoveling beach sand out of the door and refilling the refrigerator with food enough to feed Cox’s Army, and then doing it all over again the next day.
Fortunately for Art and me, the feet under the table all belong to people we love and are thrilled to have staying with us: children, grandchildren and assorted friends.
The vacuuming I mentioned before was part of the “promise“to do it right later now that Labor Day has come. Our house is empty except for the two of us – back to beginnings as a married couple in 1968. Summer began with seven of us living in this house, and then we added Collin and Isabella who bunked in with us because they found summer jobs here. That means nine sets of flip-flops after a trip to the beach and the giant washer load of towels.
Soon Celeste and Anya came for their annual summer visit, and we began to think 12 was a good number to enjoy coffee with in the morning. Our number was complete, however, only when daughter number two and her Judah and Emma came (Paul had to stay home and work), and the final touch to a merry chaotic summer.
I am grateful for every smudge on the windows, sand in the laundry room, Popsicle stains on the stairs and stale cereal left open by little hands who served themselves while adults enjoyed a semi-quiet coffee time in the back garden.
For three mad weeks the 14 of us lived together in noisy disordered mayhem, and then we settle back to a working-day life with the nine of us who live here, and we’re not on vacation.
Cleaning settled into a summer routine and eating on the back deck — a combination of pizza, hamburgers and other take-out as cooks volunteered to feed the crowd, or not. The end of the season came with visits from a friend of Collin’s from school, and then the big jolt!
Our daughter’s husband, Keith, was offered a job in Manassas, Va. It sounded really good after they had just sold the website business and were looking for their next adventure.
Now you know the sad end of this tale. Not only did they move away in a great hurry because the new job started “yesterday,” but Art laughing says, “They took the grandchildren and the cat” we really had gotten accustomed to being a part of the joys and noise of growing grandchildren in our house.
The bedrooms are empty, the basketball hoop has been dismantled and loaded into a moving van, the bicycles no longer crowd the garage, and there is no one to remind “that’s outside play.” Most of all there are no sweet, good morning kisses and good morning hugs or bedtime stories when parents need a night off. We miss it all. Empty Nesters – again.