Gone

Esther, Good night.

Sweetly, serenely, Aunt Esther slipped into that Great Good Night on Wednesday, November 21, 2012.  We were contacted Wednesday night by email just an hour before our family began to arrive from out-of-town for the annual Thanksgiving gathering of the clans.

Comings and goings.

Tears of joy; tears of loss.

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The five day feast here was cozy and included our first-ever official sleep-over with our granddaughter sans mama and papa. Solo sleepovers of grand children may not seem like a big deal to most. To us it does. The fact that THREE adults - my husband and I, and our younger daughter, who is auntie to the three-and-a-half-year-old-cutie-pie, Miss D - were totally exhausted in the wake of the actual solo-with-us-time - made us appreciate immensely how elegantly Miss D's mama navigates as a single mom. She has earned our renewed respect, awe and wonder. How DOES she do it?

Let's see: After D's mom left about 7:30 a.m., Saturday, Miss D and we three adults made breakfast, played games, danced, ran around the house, went in the hot tub, took turns supervising and taking baths and hair washes, and had lunch. My husband and I continued with laundry and putting the house back in order (after 30 folk converged Thursday for turkey, communion and song), while Auntie and Niece had a nap. Then we piled into the car headed for Sportsman's Lodge - an old standby place to see swans. We delighted in finding a few ducks and watching D run around on the bridges over un-troubled - apart from the chlorine - water. Then we drove to Topanga for a continuation of over-eating and over-indulging of sweets at yet another relative's home. Miss D said out loud, to everyone's D-light at the table, "I like everything on my plate and I'm going to eat it all." Them's is words of HIGH PRAISE from a three-and-a-half-year-old!

With P-Js on and brushing of teeth accomplished, we drove home listening via iPod to Hans Conried reading selections from Dr. Seuss. (My husband's idea.) D was intrigued. She slept through the entire night and did not need to follow the trail of stuffed turtles (also my husband's idea) leading from her bedroom to ours. We slept well (if not long enough) and were reluctant to say good bye Sunday morning. Miss D's dad picked her up and they drove off for the wilds of the north listening to Dr. Seuss all the way home. (They arrived safely.)

Younger daughter Megan left a little later Sunday, affording us an opportunity for sweet sharing.

We enjoyed a good cry as we completed the moving of beds, final loads of laundry and consolidating of left-overs. Comings and goings go better with tears flowing.

We went to a screening of Lincoln, which we thought exquisitely done. 

NOW, can we sleep?

Sweet dreams Miss D...

Great Good Night, Aunt Esther...

... And Good Night, Mrs. Calabash - where EVER you are.