Missing Persons: I look at our grown-up sons and realize those little boys are never really very far away

Each day as I walk, I like to look into the windows of the houses I pass. I'm no Peeping Tom, but there's a hint of the voyeur in me that makes me want to see how others have decorated their living rooms, or what kind of art they hang on their walls. One doesn't see much in a casual glance from the sidewalk, but it's amazing what a quick glimpse can tell you.

New neighbors on our street keep all their shades drawn even when they're home. It's no surprise that they haven't responded to the friendly overtures of various people on our block. The message of those closed blinds is very clear.

Christmas lights by Rushil, Wikimedia Commons

Two houses up is a house owned by a couple who sit on their screened porch every warm evening. Their porch light welcomes the company of all their neighbors. They were beloved by my youngest son, who spent long hours visiting them, an extraordinary friendship between a five-year-old and two middle-aged adults.

There's an older, brick house a few blocks away that was bought by a young couple a few years back. The first thing they did was to glass in a screened porch to make a playroom for their children. It's on a corner, so that when I walk by, I can see in from two sides, even though reflections make the view quite limited. The room is usually dark in the mornings, but on Saturdays, a large-screen TV lights up one wall. I catch a glimpse of one child's bare feet hanging over the end of a sofa, and perhaps the arm of another protruding from the depths of an overstuffed chair.

Last year, in early December, I glanced casually at the glassed-in porch as I took my early morning walk. The television was on as usual on a Saturday, but this time the children weren't lolling around to look at it. Standing against the adjacent wall was a large Christmas tree, lights aglow, and sitting on the floor in front of it were two pajama-clad little boys, about seven and nine years old. They weren't paying attention to the television. They weren't doing anything, in fact, but looking up at the tree. And suddenly I was hit by a wave of emotion as I remembered my own children, sitting just so. "Oh, I thought, I miss them!"

It wasn't a matter of wanting them back. As they would say, been there, done that. And it surely wasn't a question of 'Where did they go?' I know very well where they went. They are three fine, intelligent young men (I must confess there have been times when I looked at one or another of them, and wondered to myself how all that bone and muscle and sinew and hair grew out of those sweet, smooth little bodies, but that's another matter.)

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Missing Persons: I look at our grown-up sons and realize those little boys are never really very far away

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