a look back…at new beginnings…

We spent a few hours with our nephew and his wife last evening. They’d invited us over to their newly purchased home for dinner.

Touring the house, my husband, daughter and I “oohed” and “aahed” at all the details of their modest, yet spacious, first major expense. I say modest because it was definitely not over-the-top. Rather it was a typical, late 60s, split-level…living, dining, kitchen, bedrooms and bath on the top floor…family room on the lower level. The piece-de-resistance was the enormous back yard with a fire pit.

What made the home special was our nephew and niece. Watching them throughout the course of the evening, I couldn’t help but be reminded of another couple, back when they first started their lives together some 42 years ago.

My husband and I connected in much the same way…deferring to one another…finishing each other’s sentences…sharing glances that spoke volumes…respecting each other’s contributions to the meal and to their lives together.

For a few hours I felt blest to be reliving those wondrous, youthful years when my husband and I began “playing house.” The excitement of planning the use of rooms, buying new furniture, deciding what to plant outdoors, meeting the neighbors…making our mark as a newly minted twosome…living as one.

It’s nice that our nephew and niece chose to live nearby, perhaps a 20 minute drive from us, if that. We’ve lived so long on the mainland, away from family, that having relatives in the area is a welcome change. Not that we’ll be on their doorstep every weekend. That’s just not our style. We respect that young folks have their lives to forge, while my husband and I have grown accustomed to our way of doing things…and not doing things.

If there’s one thing I learned growing up with a mom who seemed to always want to be the center of my life, even when I became a wife and mother, is that love shouldn’t smother.

Love should be given freely…with no strings attached, ever. Only then is love returned freely, and in such abundance that one’s heart is near bursting.

I may not be an expert on many things, but I am when it comes to…

…loving someone with my whole heart…