Not Much

On these warm nights I open the bedroom windows. Except Alyce's room. I only open those windows if the day has been very hot. Today was 90, not as hot as very hot.

So I have just opened up the windows, and when I went in to open the window in Ann's room, I half expected to see her there. Only half expected. It has been many years since she lived here.

This house used to have every room full and busy. Alyce in the front bedroom, Ann in the corner, Richard in what I now call the guest room, and Paul down in the basement bedroom. We have a big family; even when two were married and one gone on a mission the family was big enough to fill this house. Which is why we built a big house.

Now those bedrooms don't belong to anyone, I guess. Sometimes it makes me sad to see them empty. But that is only a person looking back and half wishing for the past to come again. Half wishing.

I have given away at least four beds, and still there is a bed in every room but Alyce's. So that when family comes home to visit, they usually have a place and a bed for sleeping. Wayne's boys slept on the floor in Alyce's room this summer. He and Kimberli had the guest room. Richard's family slept in the basement on the bed there and a big air mattress they brought with them, except for Lena in Ann's room. So the house was full again.

Now it's kind of empty. Well, I'm here, and I go into every room nearly every day, but I don't really "use" them all. Not sure what the significance of that fact is, because I am here; I own the place; I like it here; I plan to stay.