I am about to turn 59 and an empty nest has just hit me on the back of my head.

I miss my kids.

I miss their shiny eyes. Perfectly shaped noses. Beautiful mouths. Their cheek bones. Their thick handfuls of colourful hair. Their soft ear lobes. Their slender talented hands and their funny feet. I have examined them all. Memorised forever.

I miss my kids.

I miss them lying on my bed. Long chats. I miss hearing their voices and watching their facial expressions. The smiles and lightness of new things. A proposal. An invention. Something created in the early hours of the morning. A song. A poem. A wire thing. A drawing. An epiphany. A new idea.

I miss my kids.

I miss their frowns of confusion, the tears of brokenness and regret. Voices raised and hard questions asked. Challenging my core. Shaking my bones. Rattling my cage. Questioning the very ground I stand upon. Tissues strewn and pillows suffocated.   Faces buried in my mattress. Holding each other’s trembling marrow. Trying to understand.

I miss my kids.

I miss their nonsense. Dancing wildly in the kitchen and any other available space. Singing. Non-stop singing. Plucking strings. Non-stop string plucking. Relentless chatter and creativity. Wrestling. Leaps of faith into each other’s bodies. Undoubtedly trusting the strong wall of love and commitment. Fortresses. Never failing fortresses.

I miss my kids.

I miss seeing them staring into my fridge. Looking into my cupboards. Walking into my bathroom. Borrowing my stuff.   Messing up my house. Hundreds of bodies around my dining table. Food everywhere. The little red over-worked espresso machine. Coffee cups piled up on the kitchen sink. Butter chicken and a cloth filled with chapattis. Paper napkins. Water fights.

I miss my kids.

I miss kissing their eyelids and the corners of their mouths. I miss folding up their ears. I miss clapping each other’s hands as we walk along the road.   I miss hearing them harmonising. I miss road trips. Car music. Kids on the car roof screaming their lungs out into the mountains. Yak milk coffee. Memories galore.

I miss my kids.

Spread out to kingdom come. Out of my reach. Too far away to hold. Their blurred faces on my screen. The deep parts of their eyes, invisible. Losing track of the built up lines of age, stress and anxiety. My band-aids are small and a kiss has lost its power. The heart wounds are beyond me. So many miles between us.

I miss my kids.

Bonded for life. Joined at the hip. Insanely loved. Etched into my memory- from birth. Day one. Every part. Crooked teeth. Larger than life ears. A brown tooth. So perfect to me. Every millimetre loved by me.

I miss my kids.