A Special Houseguest

Our boy is home for his longest visit yet since he moved away.

He left our nest right after high school for Massey University in Wellington and has never moved back to the south island. Although we’ve traveled to the States with him since then and been over there while he was there with his girlfriend, our New Zealand-raised son has not managed to get away for very long on most of his trips back home here. So we have missed him dearly.

Jake is leaving on Saturday to go back to his life and I will be forced to forget how wonderful it is to have that youthful smile and sarcastic sense of humor around to brighten my days. John too will surely miss his best pal. They’ve hardly been separated the whole time Jake has been here. But it has been a busy time for us too as there are so many projects we’ve managed to do with his help, that we’d put off indefinitely. The projects he’s tackling are way too hard for me and not in my purview or something to that effect. I’m the inside cleaner and they’re focusing on the outside jobs that I’d never be asked to do. I make pretty inside and they make messy outside. That’s how it works around here. But eventually we all get the brunt of the tasks done, in one way or another. The real issue is that there are too many tasks that need finishing or even starting. But Jake is willing and he’s been tackling what I think are the hardest jobs. He has been chopping wood till the cows come home as we depleted our woodpile in our cold and wet spring and summer and so far the fall is just as bad already. So winter will be long this year. The whole year feels like winter. Jake has also been finding rocks around the yard that he lugs back to the pond and he and John repaired the borrowed hen house that keeps our new batch of chicks and their mother hen safe. Jake has also pulled out a few weeds for me and raked and raked for a couple of hours yesterday, a job I despise because it makes my back go out, and he’s hung out and brought in the laundry that I’m so happy to wash for him. While the menfolk are busy cleaning up the yard, which they invariably bring into the house on their feet, I’ve made cooking delectable meals my life’s ambition and John has also made a few masterful dinners for all of us. But the clock stops for no one. Time is marching on in March and Jake is flying back home on Saturday. What was such a wonderful visit in the beginning is turning more pensive as I ponder just how much I’ll miss him the moment he leaves. But this is the first time we’ve had him here since last April, and that only lasted a couple of days to help celebrate John’s birthday.

So with each passing day I must remind my maudlin self that I must stay in the moment and enjoy the time we have left rather than feel anxious and sad in preparation for my tears on Saturday. We will see him again when we all go to the States for a very long and well overdue visit. We have not been back since November of 2019, that propitious month when all our lives changed. We’ve had cabin fever and had our wings clipped for even local excursions to visit family.  But soon, within a few months we will venture out into the big world again to reconnect with our relatives and friends who likewise have been stuck over there. And my darling boy/man will go with us yet again.