"Excavating"

Yesterday we were lucky in that the weather which been really rainy, prompted all of our children to choose to come straight home from either work or college, to spend the end of the week and the weekend with us. This means that there is always someone cooking, and going through all the food,but there is always lots of activity and lots of laughter. These are the times in which having a large family is a lot of fun. I am always amazed and pleased and how much they remember about their earlier lives, and somewhat surprized at the good job we did, which must have been when I had far more energy than I have now. As they sat around the kitchen table, having made dinner,our older kids were having a conversation about Daniel.
Daniel, being our fourth child, was fortunate for many reasons. One of these is that when we built our home, we had a very large closet built in his room. The original plan was that almost everything he owned could be kept in the closet, leaving his desk for schoolwork, his chest of drawers for certain clothing, and his bookcase for his many books. His clothing, coats, boots, shoes and a lot of his many toys and games were to fit in the large closet. In theory this was a good idea, but as he grew, there were things throughout the room as well. Each weekend, when homeschooling was tabled for awhile, Daniel would go through his closet looking for something he did not use during the week. Sometimes this was noisy because the back of Daniel's closet wall, is adjacent to the back of Stephanie's. If you asked him about this, he would say that he was "excavating in his closet". We always found his interesting and expanding use of English to be amusing. As I listened to our kids talk about him and laugh about their experiences with him, it helped me to remember that even though his time here was short at only twelve and a half years, that he had a good life with us. He was treasured and very loved, while not really being spoiled. He appreciated what he had and how much we all enjoyed his presence. It really helps to have our children have such numerous and broad memories of him. It helps us to remember them as well. Even being without Daniel in the flesh now, there is much for which to be thankful.