I sat one afternoon recently in the back yard of this house where we've lived 17 years, listening to the sounds of my children wafting through the open window.
I had no interest in joining the three of them in the kitchen, where they were laughing, shrieking and making a mess while concocting homemade peach ice cream from a recipe they got from a book at the library.
I didn't want to ruin the moment by stomping into their space and shouting "Look at this kitchen!"
I also didn't want to tamper with what appeared to be a rare return to childhood.
There have been many summers around this house when scenes like this were plentiful, when my children would individually and collectively make colossal messes while spending hours creating clubs and forts and homemade Popsicles in the kitchen. With no concept of time, space or serious living, they'd ride tire swings until dusk and make up plays and songs and games with marbles until they fell over, exhausted.
There was no shortage of time in these summers of childhood, when days were governed not by dates and commitments but by when the sun rose and set.
Summer was a time of much and plenty and each other.
Of course the summers of childhood don't go on forever. My eldest has spent his last three years, including summers, working at a government job in Washington, D.C., hundreds of miles from home. His sister, a rising senior in college, has likewise spent her summers working, two and three part-time jobs, and traveling with friends. Their younger brother, a high-school senior, has held the occasional odd job, but mostly he has focused his summers on high-school soccer which begins making demands on students as soon as the previous school year ends.
Those languid, barefoot summers when my children rode tire swings into the sunset, were gone.
And then my eldest child announced he was quitting his job and enrolling in graduate school. The gap between his job and school in the fall would be three weeks. Which he wanted to spend with us.
Chris' announcement, that he would be home for half of July and much of August, created a flurry of activity: His sister Emily figured a way to be home, too, so we could all be together. His brother Benjie needed no coaxing to forego a school backpacking trip and soccer practices. My husband and I rearranged already flexible schedules and hurried to secure a cabin for a week along Lake Michigan where we vacationed every summer when the children were young.
Our week at the lakeshore was relaxing.
But it was the two weeks that followed that left the indelible mark.
Surrounded by the familiarity of home and each other, unhindered by work or school or FAFSA forms, our children fell back into ruling their days by who wanted to play what board game in the basement, when. Aided and abetted by parents who look for the return of childhood, too, they started their days with sunrise bike rides, runs and swims together along old familiar trails and waterways. They made bonfires into the twilight, climbed the tree house ladder and rode the zip line in the same back yard where they once kicked the can and caught fireflies.
Who doesn't fantasize about a return to childhood? For two weeks, our children did.
And then it was over. My eldest went back East, where he has a serious girlfriend, and soon, a $50,000 college loan and at least two years of graduate school. My daughter began familiarizing herself with the course load necessary for her last year in college. My youngest child began making his way through the summer reading list required for AP senior English.
We know, meanwhile, what we had this summer, that this summer was rare and a gift -- a summer, that, given the trajectory of our lives may never come again.
Of course, we thought that before this summer.
And look what happened.
Of course, you can never know, when you are beginning a family - and even when you are 25 years into it - what shape your family will take and how events will affect it.
Of course, you can never know, when you are beginning a family - and even when you are 25 years into it - what shape your family will take and how events will affect it.
Against the backdrop of these idyllic weeks, as my son was taking leave this morning, I asked if he thought he would ever refuse a permanent job because it takes him too far from family.
An ambitious young man who wants to travel the world, he surprised me when he said, "Yes."
A mother who prides herself on never pressuring her adult children to live near home, I surprised myself when I responded, "Thank God."
(Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio, has been writing about family life since 1988 when she was pregnant with the first of her three children. Visit her website at www.debralynnhook.com. Read her blog: debralynn-bloopbloopotter.blogspot.com; email her at dlbhook@yahoo.com , or join her column's Facebook discussion group at Debra-Lynn Hook: Bringing Up Mommy.)
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