Yesterday I went to Joliet to visit my parents. It had been some time since we'd all just sat down and spent time together. Life gets busy, things take you away, even living only an hour north makes regular get-togethers nearly impossible.

I really don't have anything funny or profound to say about my night there, except that it was one of those evenings where I am reminded about just how lucky I am to have the parents that I have. JP and Lynette are the sort of people who my friends have always gravitated towards. Lynette is kind and compassionate, always lending a motherly ear and advice. She sees the good qualities most people keep close to their hearts and has a way of pulling out those elements about yourself. She understands the nature of people and can touch your heart instaneously. JP asks the questions life presents us and brings these questions to the table as a matter of course in everyday conversations. He's a contemplative individual and takes the time to ponder upon matters the way most of us think about what to fix for supper that evening. Plus, he's astute and clever and says things that will knock the wind out of you.

Together they are a force and an evening in their home - my childhood home, the dwelling I still refer to as "home" - can make you feel cleansed and whole, rejuvenated in a way that no visit to the world's most elaborate spa or devout place of worship ever could. Many people don't have this sort of experience when visiting their parents, and I'm not going to say that we are a perfect people. We aren't. We wrestle with our own demons and angels like any other family, and it's taken years of practice of dancing the steps so that when the music has stopped playing we haven't noticed.

But perhaps that's the beauty of it. That we've lived lives worth celebrating, for their hardships and their triumphs, and we can sit still together over food and drink and talk until we need to go to sleep or we'd be up until the sun came up. And I'm lucky that I have such a family to go home to, time and again.

They are good people. And I love them very much.

Posted by Erin at 08:47 PM | filed under: Odds and ends