My Empty House

Do you think it is cold in here because there are fewer bodies warming it up? I asked TBG yesterday.
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Every time I turn a corner, wondering who's on the couch or in the refrigerator or trying not to fall into the pool, I'm heart-tugged as I remember that there's no one here but the two of us.

The quiet is lovely.  Being back on a regular exercise routine has calmed my limp.  But that's it.  I've thought about it all day and those are the only two benefits I can see.

There are no random hugs, no slobbery kisses, nobody shorter than I am.  I have to do my own cooking and empty my own dishwasher.  Groceries no longer magically appear.  All of that happened under my adoring gaze, without my lifting a finger, as those who run their own homes moved easily into taking care of mine.

I had fun polishing the counters and swiffering the floors, but mostly I enjoyed watching others work.
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FlapJilly set the table, keeping track of how many place settings were required, choosing the serving utensils, reminding Little Cuter and me of Chrisitna-Taylor doing the very same things, asking the very same questions.  This one was my mommy's.  The glasses go at the top of the knives.  This was a gift from Grampa's mommy.  
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What goes around comes around and that warm feeling from a decade ago hugged my heart every time my very efficient granddaughter considered her choices: a slotted or a solid spoon; a pointy or a rounder fork.. 

For herself, though, the choice was clear.  Her great-grandmother's sterling sliver dinner fork.  The most impressive of the meat silverware, which lived in the right hand side of the hutch in my parents' dining room, which I don't use and which is now, with the dairy set in a box waiting or her to grow up and need it. 
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I didn't know when I started this post that I would actually feel warmer at the end. 

I'm surprised.  I haven't changed my clothes.  The thermostat's setting hasn't changed.

I don't know exactly where the cockles of my heart might be, but they are certainly warming me up right now..