Brothers and Sisters

I come from a close family. It has always been this way.

My parents left town for the weekend and my husband and I have been watching their dog. Last night my brother and sister-in-law came over for a BBQ (nothing out of the ordinary for us). At one point in the evening, we were sitting in my parents' livingroom discussing food preparation for a camping trip we're scheduled to take next week, when the conversation changed shape. We started talking about having children (not always the most comfortable subject for me, but somehow easier these days) and my brother said something about how he would find it hilarious if Shannon and I were pregnant at the same time. We talked about my parents' new house, the house they are in the process of building, and how we will spend time together there, and how our children will have the priviledge of knowing our parents, and how they will grow up playing with each other (as close as siblings, my brother said). And then I got hit by a sack of bricks with the recognition that my brother and sister are among the people my husband and I will spend the rest of our lives with, and we will share many evenings like this one, where nothing monumental will happen, but we will eat and drink and sit on the floor, and we will live in different houses and there will be babies and children, but our fragile lives will move forward, together, as quick as the days that have passed since our weddings.