The Mighty Viking

My wife has been gone this last month and a half, on a mission of mercy to Nevada – tending the last days of one of her relatives there.  I had been left to run the house as best as I could.  As it turned out, I wasn‘t quite as good as it as I had dreamed I might be.  Nor was I as good at being home without her as I thought I might be.  the house seemed less a home, and more a place to stay in her absence.  The day of the conclusion of her mission came, and this last week I and the family that had stayed with me went down to join her and now, last night, we all returned home,  Unexpectedly one of the Daughters and family also came for a visit.  We all arrived about an hour apart.

The house has stood completely empty for a week, and the Queen has been absent for a month.  This house of ours, is an old, 1930s era Colonial at the end of a quiet street in a quiet town.  It sat cold and moody in the absence of the family within it.  One week ago today, I had turned down the thermostat, locked the doors, and tiptoed away to let it sleep for the duration of our absence.  Now, a week of winter weather later, it sat in wooden hibernation, nothing more than a carefully arranged stack of old, dried lumber.

 I was actually the last one in the house.  an hour ahead of me, daughter and son-in-law had arrived with two or our grandchildren.  with instructions in hand, they had travelled all day themselves, and arrived, turned on the furnace, and set about unloading the car, making kids comfortable, and straightening up a bit.  Next in a half hour later was our college daughter, along with our youngest son and cousin.  More luggage, more joy of meeting, and a fire was lit in the wood stove.  Lastly, my wife and I arrived with another son.  My wife went in ahead while I assisted our son in.

As I entered this old, freshly reoccupied house, the relative importance of everything stood in clear relief.  The furnace was churning out hot air and warming the bones of the house slowly, but it was still cold.  The pulse of this house beat to the rhythm of the people.  Each person doing something – some more usefully than others.  But there, at the core of the commotion of arrival and settling in, was my wife directing the traffic, getting things put away, put right, food for the youngest being planned and prepared, the important little things being minded – with the skill of a queen.  I stood for a moment in the front entry, watching and listening.  I realized with the clarity of a Salvation that indeed, she was a Queen in her realm, and that she, more than anything, was the lifeblood of this home, that Essence that had been missing for too long.

Welcome home.  I am the King of this house.  Thank you for being the Queen of our home.