"This Is Home"

This week will be a very busy one for me at work. I fear that I may have to work late each night this week.

On Friday night, Joshua and I will fly to Denver to spend the Memorial Day weekend with my middle brother. My parents will fly that night to New York to spend the Memorial Day weekend with my older brother and my sister-in-law and my nephew. The next time that we will all get together will be the first week in July, when we will all spend ten days at the lake. I look forward to that very much.

Soon it will be one year since I moved back to Minneapolis, after being away for seven years, yet it seems like I have been back only for a week or two. I mentioned this to my parents this weekend, and they said that the time was passing so quickly for me because I have been so busy for the last year, what with settling into the apartment and preparing for and taking the bar exam and beginning work full-time.

I asked my parents when they thought that my brothers would move back home. My mother said that my middle brother would move back to Minneapolis first, and that my older brother would then follow. My father said that my mother was wrong, and that my older brother would move back to Minneapolis first, and that my middle brother would then follow.

"Why do you say that?" my mother asked my father. She was surprised, clearly, at my father's answer.

And my father answered that my older brother and my sister-in-law would be permanently settled in Minneapolis prior to the time that my nephew started school, and my father added that he would bet his life on that particular point.

My mother agreed with my father on the likelihood of my nephew beginning his schooling here in Minneapolis, but she said that my middle brother would already have returned home by that time.

"Why? Do you know something?" my father wanted to know.

And my mother said "No", that she did not know anything, but she said that she believed that my middle brother would return home sooner than my older brother, and that this was due to the fact that I was now back home.

"They'll come home in the reverse order in which they left" was my mother's final pronouncement.

My Dad seemed skeptical, and he asked me what I thought. I told him that I agreed with him about my older brother returning before my nephew started school, but I also told him that I did not know when my middle brother would return. I told my Dad that I was surprised that my middle brother had not already made some tentative plans to return to Minneapolis.

"That's because he is unsure whether you are going to remain here" was my father's reply.

My father was clearly alluding to Josh's plans, and the possibility that law school or graduate school might require Josh and me to leave Minneapolis and return to the East Coast.

Josh did not say anything, but he started shaking his head.

My mother and father looked at Josh, and then at me, wanting an explanation.

Finally, Josh said "I'm not going anywhere. This is home."