FULL HOUSE . . .

We are five and complete again: Cheech is home for the summer.

When we sat down for dinner, and Appa prayed aloud for our meal, I almost started to cry. So many emotions, so many thoughts, even among the blessings we sought and the praises we raised. All the things that had been running in and out of my head and my life and my heart over the past several months, all my worries, all my happinesses, all the burdens I carried for those I love, all the hopes I held out for the future ... all of these sat on my bowed head like a precariously-balanced circus act. And I thought about our full table, how abundantly loaded it was with all sorts of home-cooked goodies, how crowded it was now that we were all finally sitting at it together, how happy it was because Gran had her cast off and Omma and Appa had their children at home and Cheech and I had not had a petty disagreement yet. And I thought about all the families out there that might not have this luxury, this sheer joy of sharing a meal together and relishing it. And I thought about the fact that this might the last summer that Cheech is with us ... no, it most certainly will be his last, because from now on, he faces a life that isn't his own to live, a schedule that isn't his own to dictate, a commitment to the lives of thousands of as-yet-unknowns that isn't his to break. Any five-person meal after August is totally in the hands of God to arrange ...

And still I was thankful and so, so happy, and so, so reluctant to leave. I want to move back home for the next three months and soak up my family until I'm big and plump and stretched and saturated with happiness oozing out of every pore.