Bittersweet

Tonight I am homesick for my children: For summers long ago when we went to the library and the pool and to play miniature golf . . .  For the times I kissed tiny feet and made smurf houses on the kitchen table out of pop bottles . . . For those summer nights when we sat on the porch swing and read books just before bed.

I miss going to baseball and soccer games and watching them walk down the driveway to go catch the bus on school mornings.

I miss making three little matching outfits every summer and polishing three pairs of little shoes every night.

I never wanted them to grow up and yet I did, because it was the right thing to do.

I don't miss the arguments with their father. Looking back I wish I could have done that differently. I am sorry they grew up amid so much upheaval. That was never the way I planned it. Never the way I wanted it.

But it happened that way and now I can only be sorry about that part -- I wish I had done something differently there.

I miss them.