By Shelley Bennett
Yesterday my son Landon turned 19 on the 19th. We celebrated with a set of golf clubs, one-on-one basketball games, and a crawdad turned shrimp boil, when I decided that would be the easier route.
My kids’ birthdays always make me reflective and this year was a little bittersweet. As we planned the guest list, I realized that the Bennett head count would only be four, as opposed to five as it has been for the last 15 years.
Jake being away at college has lowered our grocery bill, cut down on the towel usage, made the house a little cleaner, but also not as crowded. It’s disconcerting, to say the least.
As I thought about the day Landon was born, I remember the weeks after when I was still on maternity leave. Having two little boys was definitely more work, but I fell into a rhythm of feeding and changing and bathing pretty easily.
Jake was happy to be a big brother and Landon was a very content newborn. In the evenings I would look around our living room and happy tears would fill my eyes. We were a family of four. Life was good.
A few years later, Sofia joined our family and completed the Bennett Five. That would be amount of movie tickets we needed, how many chairs were around the table, how many seatbelts the car had to have for the rest of our lives, or so it seemed.
Life has a funny way of giving you only what you can need to know at the time you need to know it. Back then it was how to hold all those hands so nobody got left behind. How to carry all the bags, towels, and blow up toys to the lake in one trip. How to fit all those bodies into your lap at story time.
Life did not hint at how it would feel when you realized your head count decreased by one.
However, life is also about seasons and cycles and changes, so when I accept that I’m able to find the good stuff. Like the clear blue skies and fresh air we’ve had the last week. The hint that Fall is coming soon as cooler temps take over. The promise of five around the dinner table during the holidays.
Remember when news was ‘newsy’? When you read about weddings, family events and engagement announcements in the newspaper? If you have something that might be newsworthy, please submit it to [email protected] and I’ll do my best to include it here in “The Good Stuff.”
