Piled on Aly's bed...

Kami and Aly are home from their first semester of college.  It’s Christmas break and after a week of finals, they are taking advantage of some extra sleep each morning.  Kami is a junior and Aly is a freshman, both attending the same college (IWU) with the same major (Nursing).  It’s been a grueling semester of study, but they both did well in spite of the overwhelming stress.

One of the things I love about having the whole family home is the times of just sitting around and chopping it up in conversation.  There are times of laughter, listening, dreaming, wondering, joking, confronting, comforting, conflicting, bantering, and encouragement.  

The boys went to bed the other night and somehow the rest of us found ourselves on Aly’s bed sprawled out as we relaxed into the evening.  Some of us were lying sideways, others were sitting with crisscrossed legs, some were kneeling beside the bed, and others were propped up with some pillows against the wall.  It was spontaneous and spirited.  Just how I like it.

I forgot how different it is when all my girls are together.  What they bring out in each other.  The shared memory that binds us close.  The unconditional love that allows us to be more vulnerable.  The belly laughs and the crocodile tears.  The poking fun and the affirmation of lifelong friends.

That’s the best thing…they are increasingly becoming our best friends.

I realized as we sat around that my little girls are now Heidi and my best friends.  They are the ones who know us best and love us most.  They are the ones we are most free around, most ourselves.  They are 20, 18, and 16 now and with each year I can feel the bond and security and solidarity strengthening.  It’s not without wrinkles and wrestling, but that’s just it, it’s friendship.  No matter the disturbance or turbulence in the relationship, we find a way to naturally come back together, because it’s a safe place to take risks.

A safe place to take risks…

…that is the truest definition of family.  A place where you come as you are so that you can become who you need to be.  You don’t come as you wish you were in order to be accepted.  You don’t put your best foot forward or obsess over making a good impression lest you get scorned and rejected.  Nope, you just sit squarely in the moment and share your real feelings and your real reactions and actions knowing that there is space to fail and fumble without the fatal consequence of abandonment.  This tribe will never leave you or forsake you.  This comfort allows you to try some uncomfortable stuff, to say some uncomfortable stuff.  Like I said, it feels like the safest place to take the biggest risks.

I have a number of good friends…some of them know parts of me that my daughters don’t yet know.  Part of that is their age or gender; part of that is their proximity to me in a work environment.  But I’ve noticed that the breach is lessening.  My girls are beginning to close the gap as they mature and experience more life outside our home and town.  They are asking more questions.  They are realizing who we are as parents, but more than that, people.  They see us a humans who are flawed, but faithful.  Broken, but honest.  They are increasingly seeing the real us.  I love that…and it only happens in time.  You can’t speed up this process.  It’s something that occurs in little episodes of time, little slivers of life in between encounters.  It almost catches you by surprise because it’s not something you see coming until it’s just there.  But it’s a good feeling, a priceless new reality.

And sitting on the bed the other night it hit me like a hurricane.  My daughters are and will continue to be my best friends through ever trial and triumph.  No matter what I do or where I am, they will follow me and lead me.  They will circle back around and come home, wherever home happens to be in the coming years.  They will be the ones I’m on the phone with even though I hate talking on the phone.  I absolutely love talking on the phone with my kids.  Could it be that it’s because they are my very heart, my truest confidants, my most trusted resources?  

They are the ones who makes their mother laugh the hardest.  They are the ones she is able to pour out her heart to without hesitation or apology.  They are the ones she is able to vigorously contend with and be comforted most by. They are the ones who love her with an undying love.  They are the ones who frustrate her the most, but they are also the ones who can settle her soul with the sound of their voice and the openness of their ears.  They are increasingly what Heidi’s mom was for her, her safest person.  The one she shared silly and inconsequential things with.  The one who she broke down with over temporary troubles. The one she could share good things with without being thought of as haughty.  The one with whom she didn’t have to even slightly edit herself.  She’s increasingly this person to them, and they are increasingly these people to her.  I watch it.  I see it most vividly in three-month intervals between semesters.

It’s just good to have my entire family home.  It’s makes my joy complete.  There is something about our house filling with the symphony of sounds that is comprised of each my kid’s unique voices.  It’s what makes a house a home.  It’s what makes an existence a life.  And I am never more alive than when my children are home and we are sitting around letting the conversation drift wherever it wills itself to go.  There isn’t anything more meaningful to me.  I sure Heidi would agree.  

It’s not perfect, but it is deep.