Boring 4th of July

I remember as a kid how fun the 4th of July was. We would sometimes go up to the White Mountains to visit my father's family. The fireworks were great, the rodeo was fun with all the cowboys they even had a parade. As I got older I even took some friends up there for the country dances. When I married a country boy from Richfield Utah we would take our little family up there to visit friends and family in "Zion." They have a great thing going up there with the parade and then everyone would go to the park where they had booths set up for the kids to do fun activities. The fireworks were held at the park and they would light them off up on a mountain. It was so loud but we had a great time. I remember seeing all the little kids in Richfield would shoot off firecrackers and have sparklers, that was foreign to me because my Mother was such a worry wart she would never let us play with fireworks, (that is where we get our paranoia.)
This year was a sad 4th for me. All my kids went out of town. Mindi and Dave went to his hometown of beautiful Wilcox. Candi and B.J. took their boys to Huntington Beach to visit his family. Ethan and Jenn took their girls up to Eagar to stay in the cabin with friends in the cool. And Spencer and Annie went to a family reunion in Montana. Rich even left me on Thurs. and went up to the Havasupai Falls with the young men and leaders in our ward. He got home Friday night but can't hardly walk, just shuffle.
While my family has been gone I have had some time to reflect on my life. It just doesn't seem fair that as mothers we spend the prime of our lives raising children, giving them all we have to give and then in a "blink of and eye" they are gone. They have their own lives with their own families. I know that is Heavenly Fathers plan, but I still don't like it.
It's hard getting old. Yesterday I went shopping at the mall with my dear friend Marlene. Then Rich and I went to Scottsdale to have dinner at the Hometown Buffet with my 80 year-old parents, my sister Mell and her husband Larry, and my favorite cousin Barb Abney. I never thougth I would be spending my 4th of July at a buffet. It was fun and nice not to have to cook and clean but it wasn't the same.
I remember when my kids were young and driving me crazy, I so wished for them to be grown and on their own. I guess you need to be careful what you wish for because eventually it all comes true.