Feb 27, 2017 3 min read

With our oldest daughter at college, and the younger two kids invited to participate in a youth retreat with church this weekend, my husband and I found ourselves sans children for 48 hours. We were extremely excited, as it is a rarity.

We spent the day Friday running errands, although we did stop at Upper Ten Mile Church in Prosperity to support their fish fry missions fundraiser on the way home. With the size of the sandwiches they sell, our lunch did double duty, and dinner was ready, as well.

When the husband came inside after completing his chores, we cleaned up and curled up on the couch to watch television for a while. No kids came in to ask for food, to change the channel or to bicker with their sibling in front of us. It was so quiet.

(How quiet was it?) It was so quiet in the house that it felt a lot like the middle of the night. We turned in early.

Saturday, I worked off the farm while he went and got filters, oil and other things he needs to begin the spring maintenance routine on the equipment. He called me in the late afternoon and asked if I wanted to meet for dinner somewhere. I said no, that we’d been so busy with an event the store was hosting that I would prefer to just come home.

He tapped the phone receiver and repeated that he was asking me to go to dinner with him. I rarely turn down an offer to go out to eat. However, I was exhausted, so I reiterated that home with him sounded better than a restaurant.

By the time I arrived, he had grilled hamburgers and made me a salad. We ate and then cleaned up the kitchen. It took half the time it normally does when the kids are dilly-dallying – I mean, helping.

Afterward, I gathered my Bible and the study I’m working through and went to the table, and he collected a list of items he’s researching and headed to the computer.

Other than an occasional question about our progress, there was silence. It was an amiable silence, but still a silence to which we are not yet accustomed. It seemed to be nearing midnight when I asked if he was ready to turn in, but the clock swore it was only 8:30.

“We are kind of lame,” I remarked to him. “First time in forever we could do whatever we wanted, and we choose to do nothing.”

“There’s nothing I want to do but be with you,” he responded. (Sweet, ain’t he?) We watched television until we fell asleep. Sunday afternoon, the kids returned home. We were glad to see them, for sure. Shortly after their return, one asked for food. The other changed the channel in the middle of a show I was watching. They both dropped their overnight bags in the middle of the kitchen.

When the kids are gone, I know we’ll be fine. We’ll be ready to slow down and enjoy the silence and the totality of one another’s company. But for now, we are both content with the more chaotic pace of our existence and the stolen moments we have together.

It might be a lame life, but it’s ours. And I love every minute of it.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.