“I SAID NO! STOP TOUCHING IT AND GET INTO BED! I TOLD YOU TO STOP!”
His reply?
“And I told YOU to come and cuddle with me!”
I guess he told me!
Goodnight, lol.
As I lay in my bed, the last one to stop for the day – as usual…everything was silent but the soft sound of my fan’s medium setting. The house was dark. Still. Peaceful. I could feel the warmth radiating off of my husband’s sleeping body. I could smell his masculinity. I love him so much…he is me and I am him.
I began to pray for the protection of our children, and then it hit me…they are safe. They are in their beds. They are in our home. They are here…with us. Then the sharp realization that, in just a few short years that will no longer be my reality. A few years after that, yet another will follow her brother out of This Nest, and then another will also spread her own wings…and that was my moment.
Oh. My. God.
This is my life…right here, right now. I understood, in that exact minute, that there will be a day when I long for that exact minute again…but will be unable to get it back. My mind will grasp for any glimpse of it when my children no longer sleep under our roof. I will reach so desperately for any reminder of it when each of my sons love a woman with all of their hearts…a woman that is not me. I will listen for it with all my might when my lonely hallways, once barely holding up under the high-volume chaos, are only met with silence…and when the first of us goes Home to our Father, I will cry and plead for it until I no longer have the energy to even breath.
Right here, right now. My moment. Bittersweet clarity.
I know that, much like with the stages of our children’s lives, one phase will replace the void left by the previous one. I know that my blessings won’t end when our little Sparrows become big ones and go off to make nests of their own. I know that there will be more love, and more joy, and plenty to celebrate…
So why then, did this exact minute make me so happy and so sad?
AD just looked at me and said:
“I like boobies!”
