Echoes

My house is filled with the echoes of my children.

(It is two weeks now until the youngest of the first six leaves home.)

I love them. I miss them.

I hear their echoes in the empty plates, empty places at the table, empty rooms, empty beds. Missing mud tracks on my kitchen floor, missing piles of shoes and forgotten homework. Missing laughter, missing hugs, missing demands for my time and attention.

Echoes and emptiness are around me, yet my heart is so full it is leaking from my eyes.