The Past Weekend

I feel compelled to say something about this past weekend, but I’m finding it difficult. It was one of those all too rare weekends where everyone was around- albeit with staggered and overlapping schedules.

Jake had actually been up since Thursday, having returned earlier in the day from a vacation. Helaina was around for the weekend, like usual. But unlike usual, she worked most of the day on Saturday and Sunday. Rachael came home for visit that started on Sunday morning and ended on Tuesday with Helaina and I bringing her back to the bus station. And Sam, of course, was around to help me all weekend.

My weekend started officially on Friday night with me taking down the remainder of the long ago abandoned play structure I had built for the kids about twenty years ago. On Saturday, Jake and I brought the dismembered remains to the dump in the apparently overloaded van- managing to break the rear axle in the process. We made it back in time to take care of the usual Saturday mid-day errands with Sam, this time bringing Jake along so we could stock him up on groceries and supplies for his inevitable departure in the coming days.

Later Saturday, we visited with family, stopping at a couple of stores on our way back home.

Sunday morning, Helaina left for work while the rest of us went to pick up a much drained and very tired Rachael from the bus station- or more accurately, near the bus station. After some hugging and holding and recharging, we packed her and her belongings into the car and from there we went to the flea market- Helaina-less.

Back at home on Sunday afternoon, Jake took off to visit with old friends while I cooked out, cooking way too much, like usual. This time, I had the excuse of adding it to the pile of groceries Jake was going to be taking back with him.

Sunday night, Helaina, Rachael, Jake and I went to a late night movie. This was at the same theater I had brought the three of them to to see “Toy Story” almost twenty years earlier. I thought about this as I sat there waiting for the movie to start. And I thought about how that would have been about the same time that I built the kid’s structure that I had just finished dismantling.

Monday was spent sending Jake on his way in the late morning and the afternoon was spent in various aspects of cleaning.

Tuesday morning, Rachael packed up and Helaina and I brought her back to the bus station, stopping at a store on our way back.

What struck me about the weekend was how utterly ordinary the weekend would have been, had this been several years ago. The weekends were always special back then, but I remember thinking about this inevitable moment in time and how what was once ordinary, will become scarce as the years pass by.