Family Matters

As many people have discovered before me, Thomas Wolfe was right on the money when he wrote, "You can't go home again."  I recently returned home to help my mom get settled after knee replacement surgery.  I spent three days and three long nights in the house I grew up in and never felt more homesick.  Homesick for my kids, my husband, my life as I know it now, not as I knew it then.

I thought about this a lot while "not sleeping" in my mother's bed.  Greg and I wanted to do this sabbatical thing (as my friends call it) to create special memories with and for our kids.  Will they someday feel like a stranger in a strange land in our home?  Sad, but possibly true.  I believe that it isn't just making happy memories that keeps families close; it is CONTINUING to make happy memories.  New memories each day for each age or time period we have together.  I hope this sabbatical year is full of happy memories for us and our kids, but I hope that our taking a year off to spend with the kids shows them how important they are to us; now and in the future.  I hope we can make many fun, exciting, "traveling to new places and seeing new things" memories for the rest of our lives.  I know they will grow up and leave us one day, but I hope we can have a relationship that our kids can always come home to- no matter what age.