5:00 on a December evening;
it’s dark outside, but all ten of us are indoors, getting dinner ready, dodging children at play, checking email, drinking coffee, talking, laughing, being quiet, being together.
I sit down to nurse my youngest; next to me, my sister is burping baby Carson, the newest member at only 7 weeks old. The other four kids are scattered around the house. Baby Einstein is on but nobody’s watching. The kitchen smells good, like gooey butter cookies and sausage balls.
My Mom would love this.
Family gatherings were her forte. She lived for these moments, loved them, loved us all being home, loved the slightly controlled chaos that followed, loved her grandchildren.
She knew my sister’s two oldest and my firstborn; I was pregnant with my second when Mom died in the summer of 2007. Before the cancer made her too sick to leave the house, she bought a blue baby blanket, confident that I was having a boy.
