Once Again

Reflections

It is seven a.m.  The bulky soft luggage bags come bumping down the steps.  The car is being packed, and snacks are stored for the journey from Vermont.  Unmade rumpled beds are reminders of their just vacated warm bodies.  It is time to finally say the Monday morning goodbyes.

It has been a weekend of such ordinary happenings, they have become extraordinary.  The children have taken the mountain Gondola ride, visited Woodstock, trekked the Quichee Gorge, and hiked the Appalachian trail.  Those are the things young people do… and they and their parents did them all.  Then, in the other hours, our family was together, where conversation was the main course on the menu.

We spoke about family, and what it meant to have that continuity in our lives….to make memories together that will always remain,.. In a moving, unplanned moment, Mort and I removed our gold bracelets to put them on our grandchildren''s wrists.  explaining after their protests, we wish to see them have them now rather than later, from an inventory list.

How precious it is to have a twenty-four year old grandchild lay down in our bed on Sunday morning so we can share some special private minutes with him for revealing his and our deepest feelings.  How incredible it also is for a family that could have gone anywhere for a vacation, to have chosen instead to fly six thousand miles to be with us.  We are touched over and over again by their loving generous ways.

To sit around a table, holding hands and connecting, saying the blessings to show how appreciative we are of each other and our lives is a powerful gesture.  To see my two sons, separated by the entire continent, be together again makes for peace and joy within my heart.

I tell my grandson "someday when you are laying in bed with your children on a Sunday morning, you will tell them that in Vermont, you did the very same thing with your grandparents."

We say our farewells this morning,.  Everyone''s eyes are wet.  "It was wonderful," they declare.  "Nana, what can we say?"  "It was past the world", says my twenty year old granddaughter, who created that expression when she was a child.

We hope to be granted more precious life to savor, so our plans for Thanksgiving will come true.  If we are called away, then today will be a full measure of memories to keep and hold.  Our gifts already pass the ultimate..