OK.  I am not a TV fanatic, but I confess a major exception to that rule.

When my children were growing up, we had a ritual.  Every Thursday night we would grab popcorn and other good treats and retreat to our second floor TV room.  It was on the second floor because we lived in a drafty old Victorian in Duluth and after dark the first floor was no darn fun.  So we made our nest upstairs and turned with anticipation to ER.  It was our favorite. 

Last night was the end of the series.  I rushed home from a meeting and caught the end of it.  And truth be told, I was all sorts of choked up when I heard the theme music played for the last time and was taken with the camera as it panned out from the familiar.

It was those long ago nights I was remembering in my emotional core.  The days when my children were all in the same place at the same time and what mattered to them was that their parents were nestled in with them and together we were warm and safe and together.

The camera pans out.  Children grow up.  Nestling delights for them are not of the parental variety.  Family configurations change.  One drafty house is traded in for another (when will I EVER learn?). 

The bittersweet ache of endings that is the background music of our lives is ever playing.  It did last night across this nation as the cast and crew of ER took its last turn on camera.  And that music wove into my heart and awakened there memory and longing and awareness that scenes are never static. 

Change is.  And the savoring of what was?  That is, too.