Week 25 ‘Quiet’ 
The house is quiet. The dishes are done. The laundry has stopped piling up. All of a sudden the nest will be empty. The birds are flying from the tree. What used to be a house full of noise is now a echoey space. That’s how Mother Nature works. We were never meant to keep our children as they grow up. It’s our job to teach them how to be independent and be on their own once the time is right. This will always be their home and as that quote states – ‘one day, when my children are grown, I hope they still come through that front door without knocking. I hope they head to the kitchen for a snack, and rifle through the junk mail. I hope they come in and feel the weight of adulthood escape them, for they are home. For my children, my door will forever be open.’ 
Our house was always noisy. 6 humans living in one space, all trying to get their point across day to day. We only have 3 bedrooms in the house so the girls shared a room, the boys shared a room and as the mum & dad of the family unit shared the master bedroom. We always had extra children over the weekends and school holidays and nobody ever really wanted to leave. It was a safe, fun and busy place to play in. The park, bike track and jetty on the lake was across the road and a pool and games room decked with pool table, lounges, fridge, tv, games consoles in the back yard. We had rules they had to abide by – keep the volume down past midnight so we didn’t get any complaints from neighbours as they all slept in the games room and no swimming in the pool past a certain time, to keep the bathroom light on to help guide the path in the middle of the night and shut the pool gate and back door otherwise the cats will get out and the dogs will come in. We had a beautiful old maple tree to climb on and carve you initials in the bark. 
Jacob’s ps4 console has been very quiet. He bought it with some of the money he got back from a benefit night held for him during his treatment. We were big on playing games even when he was younger. We were a competitive family playing Mario party together as we chased stars across the game board on the old Nintendo console. Dust has gathered on these unused items in our quieter house. But over the last few days a bit of noise is stirring up the flow of the house. My eldest daughter Amy 28 bought the remake of an old family favourite game we used to play – ‘Crash Bandicoot.’ Playing the original game again after all these years brings back all the wonderful memories of our house when in was in it’s prime. I hope as our family extends with engagements, weddings and births of new generations the noise and chaos will return and this period of quiet only be a transitional phase. I seem to function better with a constant hum around me. It takes sadness to know what happiness is, noise to understand and feel the quiet and absence to value presence.