He Had Me at "I'm Home"

I realize it now, only after he's come home.

September spoke in incomplete sentences. It sounded strange, felt a bit off, but I didn't try to diagram the cause. I just kept rumbling forward like a run-on.

After a long month away, he returned home and gave us the subject we were missing in all that going and doing. He even put an end to those dangling participles.

Last week, he walked through the door in time for dinner almost every night, bringing lungfuls of fresh air. He enforced broccoli consumption, hung a mirror, chaperoned a bike ride, engaged in homework, held our hands. He lauded the leek soup, prodded thank-yous from the children.

Subject. Verb. Prepositional phrase. He's home, and life finally sounds the way it should. We are again a family of four.

Yesterday when we walked the trail after dinner and a day of rain, he found Dani's puddle jumps to be just as darling as I did. It meant the same--so much--to us both when the little ones snuggled under each of his arms and soaked in his college football tutorial. (Sorry Papa, seeing as they are our children and we have the final say on fan indoctrination, there will be no more "Go Blue"-ing via Skype.)

I'm out of ways to say it except for the way that Jerry Maguire did. And while I'm admittedly prone to cliche, even I draw the line at the the you-complete-me mush. No. I won't say it. I won't. I won't.

But really, it's the only way to say it. Because he does.

And because he does, he had me at "I'm home."

Unwrapping this gift of homecoming as part of Tuesdays Unwrapped hosted by Chatting at the Sky.