Family hugs!

When my kids were little, any one of us could call out “family hug!” and the whole gang would come running from various rooms in the house to join in the big squeeze.

Our youngest daughter’s graduation this weekend felt exactly like that. Molly invited us, “Family hug!” and we all came running from various parts of the country to celebrate.

Molly’s brother Charlie battled the triple travel threat of a New Jersey transit strike, a troubled Newark airport and stormy weather to fly into Iowa, essentially for one, magical day.

Molly’s sister Katherine flew in from LA, volunteered to sleep on a couch and cheerfully folded her long limbs into the front middle seat when we hit maximum capacity in our vehicle; her brother Vinnie and his wife Danni drove in from Maiden Rock bearing snacks and excellent wine; her aunts Donna and Elaine kindly shuttled our coastal travelers to and from the airports; and her dad, Grandma Peggy and I drove in from Wisconsin.

What a glorious, giddy, grateful time we had! I love watching the tall adults I raised throw their arms around each other with unabashed glee.

I love seeing them alternately goad and cheer each other on in that happy way that says “I know and admire exactly who you are.”

We got to see our Molly in her element, eat her foraged delicacies and meet her clever friends. She invited us to her favorite dive bar, where we shot pool and listened to timeless jukebox tunes. We rolled up to a house party and tumbled out like clowns exiting a circus car. We marveled at the cool people we met and the casual way they dropped the kind of fascinating sentences that danced around your head long after you’d left the party.

Then we stayed up late, laughing over favorite memories and making precious new ones.

The occasion of our visit, and the program from which Molly earned her degree, deserves its own space and I’ll write about that in a follow-up post.

For now, I’m reveling in the wake of our epic family hug, and already looking forward to the next one — in T-minus less than a month.

Woo hoo!