A little peace and quiet ~ July 24, 1997

David Heiller

That’s what we experienced last week. Peace and quiet. Our two kids were gone.

Mollie went to camp, and Noah went to visit a friend. So from Tuesday to Friday,

Malika was at camp.

we didn’t have the kids at home.

This has happened a few times in the last 14 years, but usually not for more than a day at a time. A four day stretch was a lot different. It took us back to the good old days, and maybe to some new days ahead.

When we came home from work on Tuesday, we could lie on the bed and read. We didn’t have to start making supper right away.

The house was quiet. The kids weren’t there to tell us about the blow-by-blow of their day, what Noah said to Mollie, what Mollie did back to Noah.

The house was clean, just like we left it in the morning. We could actually see our dining room table. It wasn’t piled with a basket of laundry and a couple books and a wrinkled newspaper.

The floor didn’t need sweeping, the living room didn’t need to be picked up. We didn’t have to ask Noah to put his shoes away, or Mollie to take her dirty clothes to the laundry room.

There were no basketball games to play, no softballs to toss, no chores to supervise. No arguing!

Hey, Dad, play some basketball with me?

No Sepultura. No Hanson. Those are music groups, in case you don’t have teenagers. They’re not my favorites, to put it politely. But my kids don’t like my music either.

On Wednesday we left work early and went to Duluth. We took our bikes along, and rode through the ritzy areas looking at mansions. We found a book store in someone’s house and browsed through used books. That was fun. One form of heaven for me would be a good used book store, and all the time in the world to spend there.

We ate supper at Taste of Saigon, bought candy at Hephzibah’s, and walked the board walk to the rose garden. Not once did we think about calling home to check on the kids.

A date is always nice!

We came home to a dark and quiet house. We were childless again.

We did think about the kids, Cindy more than me. We wondered especially about Mollie, how she was doing at camp. She never wrote, so we took that as a good sign, that she was having too much fun, or that she was too exhausted. Or both.

We enjoyed our time alone. It was a break. We were able to get a lot done. Not just work, but “quality time,” to use a phrase from the nineties.

Spouses need that, so they can become a couple again.

During their absence, I wondered what our life would be like without children. I kind of liked all that peace and quiet! A sense of freedom returned, that old feeling that I could go anywhere and do anything.

“Simplify, simplify,” Henry David Thoreau’s famous words, came to mind. The details of our life had simplified greatly without the kids: The big picture details that are a constant presence in the back of my mind, like how we’ll save enough money to send the kids to college. And the mundane ones, like how we’re going to get the kids to and from swimming lessons.

All together again!

Then it all changed, when a car door opened on Friday night and I heard Noah’s voice call out, “Hi Dad.” It was like a bolt traveled through the air between us, connecting us, triggered by his voice, by those two words, and I forgot about my new-found freedom.

On Saturday it happened again, when Mollie called me at work and asked if she could have Sarah spend the night. She was home, safe and sound! Wow, it was good to hear her voice.

It was good to give them hugs. It was good to have them back.

On the one hand, it would be nice not to have the worry and complications that our children bring. I’m envious of childless couples for that reason.

But on the other hand, I wouldn’t trade them for all the gold in Birch Creek township.