My favourite wife and I often commented, through all the years, at the profound difference the absence of one child made to our home. It might be a sleepover, or someone away on a school trip; and just one missing from our table of eight made the house eerily quiet, and put us all in a somber mood.

With the departure of our Little One (who turns 22 this very week) our home feels too quiet. Tomb like. A sequestered, echoing cloister in which my Favourite Wife and I wander noiselessly, passing in the shadows. My readers might be tiring of this self-indulgent topic, but come with me, one more time.

A chapter of life has very clearly ended, and beyond that loss lies something new, something large. Raising a child with Down syndrome takes quiet a bit of time and energy; and suddenly much of that time is ours again. But more than time, there is space. Measurable space in a vacated bedroom, an empty place at table, a missing swing set, an absence of washing on the bathroom floor. There is space in the air too: the house sounds different. Just a four weeks ago whichever living space Favourite Wife and I were not using was claimed as a dance and rehearsal studio for energetic singing and boisterous conversation with any number of imaginary guests. (I entered this studio without permission one night recently, and was furiously apprehended by our perspiring, noisy dance student: “You know not to disturb me when I am rehearsing!”). With quietness comes an awareness of space in several dimensions. Space to work, thoughts to ponder, music to play, things to create, friendships to revisit.

Most importantly there is inner space. Heart-space, soul-room; something precious and hard to name. How do we inhabit such space when the invitation arrives? There is a realm of hopeful, contented peace which is so close to us that it requires only our nod of ascent, or a deep breath, to enter it. But will we? Do we? In our world of haste and material concerns empty spaces are quickly filled. I reckon I could plug up the newly opened gaps in my life very satisfactorily in just a few weeks; but I am holding out.

At about 10pm each night, when our bed time rituals began, I miss her terribly. Even though this time of night was sometimes terrible! There is such pain in this loneliness, but at the very same moment I am called inward … or is it outward, or upward? Despite myself I want the emptiness.

This is the deepening, joyful space that beckons.

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Rejoice!

You may know that it’s coming; you may tell yourself that you know that it’s coming; you may tell others around you that you know that it’s coming; and yet it will always comes to you as a stranger. Unrecognisable … vaguely familiar … oh yes! It is grief.

Iv’e missed our Little One most often at night since she moved into her own home. We shared many small rituals throughout our days, as she has a great delight in repetition of the routine. At about 9 pm we like to drink black coffee together, and so I find our two small, stainless steel cups and saucers on the shelf. Here they are! Two, but I only need one tonight. Our evening routines were a finely tuned pathway toward sleep – something with which Little One has had a complex relationship since birth. A relentlessly restless sleeper; sharing the bed with her required desperate endurance. We often found her sitting bolt upright in the corner of the cot, sound asleep. On a memorable night she climbed out of her cot, aged only two-ish, and found me writing an essay in my study. That was the end of my years as a student. Throughout her life she has needed to be put to bed, and only in recent years have we been able to leave her room before she was actually sound asleep or she would simply follow us back out. In her adult life I have generally been able to get her in bed by 11 pm, and I almost always stay up another hour, just till I’m sure she is asleep. Not to do so risks being awoken at 1 or 2 am to a house full of lights, music, talk, dance even. Not to mention sounds of industry emanating from the kitchen.

So, here it is nearing midnight once again as it has each night since Little One left home a fortnight ago; but I have no responsibility, no charge to care for. I’m awake out of long habit, but it’s a weary and lonely wakefulness without purpose. Bedtime has been my favourite job, and certainly my joy, for more than thirty years. Throughout all the years there has always been a child who needed me to put them to bed! But, no longer.

Perhaps it’s the unique nature of today, Fathers Day, that makes my melancholy tale so raw. Or perhaps it is that the life of a parent is the deepest, fullest, most precious, most wonderful path we ever tread.

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AUTUMN

The leaves are falling, falling as from far,
As if far gardens in the skies were dying;
They fall, and never seem to be denying.

And in the night the earth, a heavy ball,
Into a starless solitude must fall.
We all are falling.

My own hand no less
Than all things else; behold, it is in all.
Yet there is One who, utter gentleness,
Holds all this falling in
His hands to bless. – Rainer Maria Rilke.

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Rejoice!