Stories: Homeword

The Perfect Number

It’s Friday morning, and my son Kyle and daughter-in-law Susan plan to leave at 7:00 a.m. to return to Louisiana. They had arrived the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. My daughters Amie, Jenny and Mary are heading out the front door ready to join the masses on Black Friday, pledging to each other to shop til they drop. Kathy and I stand at the door and wave as they all drive off.

The holiday was good. There was laughter, good food and thankful hearts all around. It was a time to connect and to reconnect with Kyle. He and Susan have lived in China for more than two years, and this Thanksgiving was their first to celebrate in the States since first leaving for China.

Kathy and I return to the living room with warmed-over cups of coffee. We nestle close to each other on the sofa and sit in silence. Trixie lies at our feet in contentment. But as time goes by, she rises slowly, lowers her head and goes to her bed for a nap.

We are alone.

Kathy and I met in high school. We became best friends and eventually we dated. Although we are very different, we have always enjoyed many of the same things. So spending lots of time with each other was natural. Our dating turned into true romance and then an engagement.

We were married on July 18, 1981. Two was the perfect number.

When you love each other so completely, procreation is inevitable and pleasing to God. Kyle was born, and the perfect number became three.

Although Kathy and I were young, we were not selfish. Our worlds revolved around this little person. We could not have loved him more.

We made the decision then to keep Kyle out of daycare, and Kathy committed to be a stay-at-home mom. Kathy delayed getting her college degree while I strived to finish school and work part-time jobs to make ends meet. It was very difficult at times, but we learned that God is sufficient in all things. We learned that He takes care of those He loves even better than we can care for ourselves. We learned the lessons of total dependence on God.

For nearly four years, Kyle brought sunshine into every day all by himself. He was the center of our world and we all thrived together. When you love one child so completely, it is difficult to imagine loving another child as much.

And then Amie was born, and miraculously our hearts grew bigger. Now the perfect number was four. Amie was a swirling, twirling bundle of perpetual joy.

Times were still hard. But growing our family had less to do with what some call the perfect time and had more to do with God’s timing.

Kathy and I took our new parenting responsibilities seriously. We could handle two children – we had enough arms and just the right number of laps. We could not imagine the happiness three children would bring.

Jenny was born four years later. Our perfect number became five, and our lives became even more richer.

Even as a baby, Jenny made us feel better by just being with her. She was content to climb into your lap, smile and just share time – whether it was sitting together in a rocker or playing outside in the leaves.

Kathy and I thought cancer had robbed us of having any more children, and we were content with the perfect number five. But God once again asserted His perfect will, and Mary was born. Six became our perfect number!

Some called her the spitting image of me. My mom said she was evidence of surviving my cancer. Kathy and I held her in our arms and felt the love and closeness we had felt the first time we held Kyle twelve years before.

Today, Mary is a sophomore in high school. Amie and Jenny are becoming independent young women. Kyle and Susan are building their life together. As the years have passed, the size of our at-home family has decreased. Kathy and I spend more and more time alone these days, and we like that.

But for me the perfect number will always be six – even when there are only two of us.

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