"THE EMPTY NEST"

It was a hot Friday evening in early October 2024 when I was trying to relax and forget about the heat when my phone suddenly rang. I quickly picked it up, hoping that the diversion would help me feel more comfortable.

The screen on the phone told me the caller’s name and I thought my second son was calling to find out how I was doing. He hadn’t called in a while.
I was so happy to hear him as he said hello back. After the usual pleasantries, he got down to the purpose of his call. He simply said that he was planning on coming home for about six weeks with the grandchildren.I nearly fainted with excitement.

The reason being that since the year 2008 when our last child left to go overseas for further study we have just been living in our empty nest, my wife and I.

We have five grandchildren, all boys. None of them had ever stepped into our house because they are essentially abroad. All along it had been us going to visit them. So having heard what my son had just said, I realized that I wasn’t only excited but I had a certain amount of doubt too. The two boys are ten years old.

They could have come much earlier in their young lives, can he really bring them home now? What has changed? How about my daughter in law? So I paused the last question. The answer was that they are planning on getting her to join them towards the end of their visit.
I thought about that for a while and realized that finally, and for the very first time ever, our house was going to be graced by our own children and grandchildren for the first time ever.