Top up

There is nothing more satisfying for a mother than to have her children home for a while – at least for me anyway. I have been fortunate this week in having my daughter stay for a few days, a decision that was made on the spur of the moment on Thursday last week. ‘’I’ve decided to come home tomorrow night,’’ were Renee’s excited words down the phone. It seems the stars all aligned for her to make this impromptu visit. Renee had been wanting to come home for a while but there always seemed to be obstacles, the flights being too expensive, too many clients, no earnings while away, and the difficulty of getting up north and back again. Unlike the other kids, Renee doesn’t do buses! But on Thursday morning, both her ex-partner and sister phoned, her partner offering to look after the kids on her week, and her sister offering to drive her all the way up north and back again. With both these proposals, the chance to journey from the Gold Coast seemed too good to pass up.

And I am so pleased she did come. She reached my house on Tuesday afternoon after spending three nights at her father’s house, further up north. We didn’t do much, a trip to town for Christmas presents for her kids, an afternoon at the beach, a visit from her sister-in-law and niece, plus a massage and healing, but that didn’t matter. There is an infusion that takes place, just from being home and around loved ones, just soaking up the energies that are of home. I could see a change in my daughter, from the child who called in at the Mind, Body, Spirit Fair in Whangarei on Saturday on her way up north to the child who left this morning. An air of peace now pervaded, where there had previously been stress.

Renee commented that New Zealand no longer feels like home anymore but regardless, that longing to return had been with her for some time, particularly since missing coming home last Christmas. And I know she is now topped up with the energy that will sustain her until her next visit.

And me too. It is one thing to talk on the phone, it is another to embrace one’s child in a hug. Even when we were sitting together in the lounge, playing on our devices, seemingly preoccupied in our own little worlds, we were still together, in each other’s space, soaking up the energies and reinforcing those bonds.

One doesn’t realise the emptiness that creeps in with a child’s absence, that slowly builds larger as the time away increases. We let our children go with love because they grow and become adults and have their own lives to live. We encourage them in their pursuits even when these entail other countries. But it sure is nice when they come home. We feel whole again.