The reunion is over. All the stuff, stuffed back in our cars, the merry go round of hugs, kisses and I love yous complete, the quick linger to try and hold it, record it, imprint it. The youngest leaves first, then the second youngest, the oldest, the first daughter, and then it is just Betty and me, and Cora, who will soon be asleep, sitting in the driveway below the Smokys—quiet. We are drenched in love and pain, sorrow and ecstasy, filled and loss. Family is hard-won and hard kept. Personalities that amaze us are the same that dismay, loves that ache are also aches of love. It is the longing for perfection, for Eden, for sorrow free life, for life when a splinter was the greatest hurt you had to remove. But as families grow and love increases so does the difficulty of allowing love as your only theme, to bite the tongue, to carry your sorrows close to the vest. I laid awake in the middle of last night nursing the aching pain of love that longs for only joy in each of their lives while knowing I no longer can provide it. One of the greatest joys of fatherhood is being the one that can get the splinter out. But there was no eternal sorrow in Fair Haven last night. Reunions are bitter Sweet, you are hurt by all the hurts you can’t fix but you are joyed by all those that are a part of your life and no one else’s. Family and love are hard-won and hard kept.
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