A Homecoming Weekend, Sort Of

Homecoming is a bit of a misnomer today because even though it is our local high school's Homecoming Weekend, half my family is out of town. Gabriel, a high school senior, and Greg are in Fairfax, Virginia tonight. They've spend the past four days touring colleges in the region and sightseeing in our nation's capital. I miss them badly. My husband rarely travels for work and I am not accustomed to having half my family missing from home.

Their time away has meant Lucas and I have been spending lots of time together; I got to watch him goal keep at the Friday afternoon JV soccer game. Usually I can't make it because I am driving Gabriel to Princeton for orchestra practice. Today I attended the last football game of the season too, where he sang the national anthem with the high school chorus and then played the trumpet in the pep band.  I hadn't heard the pep band all season. Most football games are Friday nights and I am in Princeton for Gabriel's orchestra. It was a beautiful brisk fall day. It was wonderful to meet and chat with some of my sons' teachers in the stands. I sat with one of my dearest friends and her son, and later, with a group of mothers from our neighborhood. It was lovely to talk to them about this leg of the parenting journey.

Then, I walked over to the pep band and embarrassed Lucas with my goofy iPad camera?  (He swiped the crown from the Homecoming King, who also plays in the pep band. The boy didn't seem to mind.)

Friends with older children remind me how these days with children still at home are fleeting. We must make the most of them.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

Khalil Gibran