Just wondering....

As we experience life and getting older, I keep finding myself looking back and wondering.... my parents had 6 kids, as each one of us started finding our independence and trying to decide what we wanted to do in our lives, did they agonize over leaving their oldest child behind in Tennessee as they moved the rest of us to Florida and he shipped out, far, far away?  I do vaguely remember them wishing they heard from him more often and the big boxes of goodies my Mom would send him over-seas while he was stationed at different Air Force Bases.  There was always a hunt for a box of cinnamon Dentyne, his favorite.  And lots of homemade chocolate chip cookies to remind him of home. (I think he told me they always arrived in crumbs but he enjoyed them just the same) And then when the next one moved out...did it feel like another piece of themselves was missing?  And the next and the next...they had 6 of us!  How did they stand it?  I was the only girl, did they worry and discuss my choice of jobs or boyfriends or what I was doing with my life?  They left me behind and moved with my two younger brothers to Louisiana because I chose to live with Mike...they didn't know at the time that I was engaged to someone they really didn't care for.  Then number 5 moved out and away and finally when the youngest went into the Air Force and shipped out....how did they feel?  How did they adjust...or did they take a big breath and smile at each other, and enjoy the peace because they had time to get to know each other alone again?

I don't remember one conversation with either of them about that but as we are experiencing these things and the joy of our son giving us our first daughter in love and 2 beautiful granddaughters, and our other son meeting someone special that he is planning a future with, I find myself wondering about them often.  And I feel the loss of each of them, too soon and too young all over again.

I wish I hadn't been caught up in my youth and trying to create my own life and had been wise enough to know I would miss conversations we never had.

Musings of a modern day mamaw.