The next day, at home, Joyce is sitting in her favorite chair, looking around her. Everything is so tidy and clean. She cannot help but wonder, where are the toys which are always scattered all over the floor? Michael’s trains, Gabriel’s airplanes, Christelle’s coloring books, Geanna’s dolls, and Carmel crawling all over the place? She knows that they are but memories now. everything around sounded so quiet … so calm. Where is the sound of the children’s laughter and the baby’s cries, the unending questions, the squabbles? It is so quiet now. Her hands had been so busy during the day; now they lay still in her lap. She has nothing to do; there are no little ones to discipline and no little fights to referee. Gabriel has assured her that the children are very good and loving to each other as adults, and that she did a good job raising them. She has to trust him for now. She looks forward to getting to know her children again, even as she misses the children, who are so real in her mind…but who no longer exist. She lost twenty years of memories and she has to get used to that fact.

“The laughter of children the old walls have known
And the joy of it stays, though the babies have flown…
…The riches of life are not silver and gold
But fine sons and daughters when we are grown old.”

Gabriel comes into the room, interrupting her reverie. He hands her a glass of champagne; they have always enjoyed drinking champagne together.

“Salute,” he says, smiling while clinking his glass with hers.

She smiles back. “Cheers!”

She watches the bubbles speeding up from the bottom of her long glass to disappear at the surface. Soft Italian music floats in the air, and she can smell the pizza that Gabriel is making. Today is Mother’s Day, and all the children are coming home for dinner. They will all eat dinner together just like the old days.

She is grateful to be back. She is overjoyed that she will get to know her children and be part of their lives as they have families of their own.

Yet she cannot help but reflect on how blessed are the mothers who wake up every day to find their babies still babies and their children still children and ahead of them a day full of work, struggles, fights, laughter, screams, joy and tears, dinner time, story time, prayer time and then…bedtime.

She smiles, recalling an elderly lady telling her many years ago: “Joyce, you and Gabriel are living the most beautiful years of your life. I know it can get busy and tiresome, but enjoy your children now… Enjoy every moment for they will grow so fast.” And they did.

The End

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