No More Oatmeal Kisses

From Rose Cottage:

This is an excerpt from an old Erma Bombeck column published on January 29, 1969.

A young mother writes: “I know you’ve written before about the empty-nest syndrome, that lonely period after the children are grown and gone. Right now I’m up to my eyeballs in laundry and muddy boots. The baby is teething; the boys are fighting. My husband just called and said to eat without him, and I fell off my diet. Lay it on me again, will you?”

OK. One of these days. . .
You’ll straighten up the boys’ bedroom neat and tidy: bumper stickers discarded, bedspread tucked and smooth, toys displayed on the shelves. Hangers in the closet. Animals caged. And you’ll say out loud, “Now I want it to stay this way.” And it will. . .

Think about it. No more Christmas presents out of toothpicks and library paste. No more sloppy oatmeal kisses. No more tooth fairy. No giggles in the dark. No knees to heal, no responsibility.

Only a voice crying, “Why don’t you grow up?” and the silence echoing, “I did.”

What a reminder!! With everyone being sick for sooo long, and Jolie getting sick again (poor thing!), I needed a reminder that this is just one moment, and it will end, and we'll keep moving on to the next moments.

A favorite scripture from my teen years that comes to mind, and is still as meaningful as ever:

Psalm 103:15-17

"As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

"For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

"But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting . . ."