[Seek] To Put the Pieces Together

I've had this constant feeling like something is missing for months.

My family sees my parents at least twice a week every week, all year round, unless my parents are on a cruise or out of state visiting friends. We even vacation at the same place for two weeks every Summer. 

But lately, we haven't seen them in person much at all. We talk on the phone. We see each other on Tuesday nights on Zoom for a church gathering. We see each other for online Bible Study for Everybody on Thursday afternoons. But we hadn't seen them in person in ages. 

Then, I think, we'd all had enough. After a Saturday morning hike, we went to their house to pick up a few things they had for us (chocolate, music cds) and my Dad had ordered lunch for us. The children sat in one room to eat. My parents and I ate and chatted at the dining room table (my negative covid-19 test from two days prior helping us be comfortable with this). My husband chose to eat on the porch and then come in wearing his mask, as he works five days a week and didn't want to risk anything.

Three children fell asleep on three couches. Apparently leaving the house during quarantine is taxing on young people who have just eaten very large gluten-free sandwiches.

One heard the word 'puzzle' and was all in. 

While my parents and I chatted at one end of the dining room table, my husband and fourth child, Coren, worked on the puzzle at the other end. As we filled each other in on the pieces of each other's lives we'd missed, Jim and Coren filled in more and more of the puzzle. 

While there wasn't time enough to put all the pieces in place, it was wonderful to reconnect with my parents face to face. It was what I had been missing all along.