Will I miss it?

I allow myself a deviation from my otherwise strict chronology and move forward to here and now, Midsummer Eve. It is perhaps one of the most Swedish annual festivities, which like Christmas Eve and Easter are preferably spent with the family, although young people continue with their friends afterwards. My husband and I were invited to some friends on the West coast of Sweden where we had been before and would be glad to go to again, when we suddenly realized that this may be the last time ever in our house, the house where our children grew up, where we have lived twenty seven happy years. I am usually not too sentimental; in fact we frequently flee from Christmas to some warm and sunny country, but this time I felt I must stay at home. We have managed to gather 60% of the children and four out of nine grandchildren – the rest had already made other plans. We had luck with weather, as it started raining just as were about to break up. We sat outside, ate pickled herring with new potatoes, sour cream and chives, as is the Swedish habit for this occasion, followed by barbeque, strawberries and rhubarb pie. It was as usual noisy and chaotic, people talking all at once, plates and glasses in and out of the kitchen, mosquito bites, scratches, until half of the company fell asleep here and there about the house.

Now the house is empty and silent. I am exhausted. Silence rings in my ears.

Will I miss it next year? Will I come back to celebrate Midsummer with the family? Will I long for pickled herring? Or will it just be bygone time, something to look back at, but not regret?