Sectioned-Off

My friend Bettina once told me that her mother compared the family unit to an orange. As each child left home, it was like a section being pulled away from the fruit.

Some images become embedded in my brain, and that one took hold.

Today, as we drove our daughter to the Pisa Airport for her flight back to New York, and earlier this week as we drove another daughter and her husband to the Florence Airport for their flight to Washington, I kept visualizing those orange sections being torn away.

John and I are lucky that we have grown children who enjoy spending vacations with us, and we with them. We are a good group together. I'm not saying that we are the Brady Brunch. All of us are strong-willed and sensitive, so there is usually a little drama.

Some of us have tempers and others of us pout. We have lots of little quirks among us, including one who will not eat red meat, two with a tendency to hypochondria, one who will argue almost any point, another who has a tendency to organize everyone and everything, another who complains about firm beds, one who views everything in mathematical terms. The list continues.

Yet we laugh a lot and like being together. When the vacations come to an end, they are never happy to leave and we are never anxious to see them go. When they get back home, the girls describe themselves as suffering from P.I.S.S., or Post Italy Stress Syndrome.

I will mope for a few days, and John will sympathize. I will look around at the people in this small Tuscan village and wonder if they are the ones who are living right. The businesses are all family run, grandparents are helping to raise the children, children don't leave. That seems attractive to me. Blame my Mediterranean blood.

In a week the girls will have their P.I.S.S. under control and I will stop thinking about segments being ripped away from the whole orange.

In the meantime, that is all I can think about.