Full Moon Rising

Listen to this reflection by playing the video below or continue down the page to read the full text version.

Delta Rae had it right. There is no peace in quiet. After the Celebration of Life was over and friends and family have returned to their lives, the house Amy and I have shared is very quiet. Too quiet. For the better part of 28 years, our house has been the exact opposite as it was typically a beehive of activity raising our three wonderful children.

From the early grade school years to the running (and driving) around of the Middle and High School years, our house has rarely been the quiet house. Our kids were never video game kids. They much preferred our enormous sand box and playset when they were little and outdoor sports and shenanigans as they grew older. The screeching and yelling of them and their friends were nearly a constant sound in our neighborhood.

One of the other mainstays at our household was dinner. We had always been a family that ate dinner together. Part of that was a function of the boy’s diabetes. From a very early age, we had structured our lives around eating meals in order to regulate the boy’s blood sugar levels and keep them on a healthy trajectory. Meal time at the Youngquist household was rarely quiet. This was partly due to the boys’ post meal sugar rush they experienced before their insulin could fully kick in and partly to Amy’s skill and insistence in extracting the day’s events out of each of the kids.

Amy loved this time. Her ability to learn the details of her children’s lives was the envy of every parent in the neighborhood. It even trickled down to our much more reserved daughter as she literally would have to compete for food with two hungry boys and for gaps in the boy’s conversation to share important aspects of her life with us.

One night on a particularly boisterous night at the dinner table, Morgan, a very tall 6’2” at the time, saw fit to jump up onto his chair and moon his brother sitting across the table from him. Seeing such a spectacle at an elevated height truly shocked Amy into full parent mode and she scolded him with appropriate vigor. Unfortunately, when she looked to me for reinforcement, I was of no help as I couldn’t stop laughing uncontrollably at the absurdity of the entire episode.

Even after launching our children off to college and then onto successful careers, our house has always been busy. Just the way Amy liked it. We were fortunate to have everything from kayaks to the coolest potato gun ever made to lure the kids back. Amy’s talent for preparing food and her insistence on feeding them and their friends also had something to do with it.

I worry without that ever-present love and laughter from their mother, that our house will digress into the quiet and sad house that no one wants to visit. The ability to create and nurture that same fun loving atmosphere created by their mother might be beyond my ability, especially as I mourn her absence. I have taken for granted the companionship, friendship, and love that has been ever present in this household. I miss it greatly and regret my complacency. There truly is no peace in quiet.