82. I Love ... when my adult children have time to talk.

For the entire year

before my eldest went off to college,

I grieved.

I would often lay in bed

and listen to the 

noises of the house.

Four teenagers;

the days of them being in bed before us,

gone.

I'd listen to those voices

bouncing noisily within our walls

and try to 

soak it in;

try to make it last,

knowing that all too soon

it would be quiet.

Too quiet.

The house would never, ever be

as full and alive and vibrant

as it was at that very moment.

And it wasn't.

They went away,

one by one.

But when they came home,

they didn't rush to their rooms

and immerse themselves into their own world

as they had.

They brought coffee

or sat over a cup of tea

and talked.

We talked more than we did

when the lived here.

I cherish those moments,

one on one with them;

when I get to hear of their world

outside the walls

of this house.