This is a house that has expanded and contracted so often during the last few decades that I almost wonder it doesn’t have stretch marks. 

After so many comings and goings you develop a feel for the ebbs and flows. There is the excitement when it fills again, the sense of life returning to the old place. And when that life departs for other climes, there is, of course sadness but also calmness and stability. 

While it would be easy to call the house emptier after one of these leave-takings, I know that the old place is really just holding its breath. There will be visits and returns. There will be grandchildren crawling on these floors (goodness, I’d better mop them!). 

There is life in this old house yet.