Usually, I go to her.
I drive to Kissimmee, walk through the door of the house I grew up in, and slip back into a familiar rhythm. Her kitchen. Her chair. Her world. And there is something sacred about that, being in the place that made me, with the woman who raised me.
But this week she came to me.
My eighty-eight-year-old mom stayed with me for the week in Lakeland. And somewhere between the morning coffee and the evening stories, I found myself reflecting on how special it is to have her here, in my space, in the life I’ve built over the past twenty-some years.
We got up early each morning and sat together over coffee. No agenda. Just the quiet kind of conversation that happens when two people aren’t in a hurry, talking about the world, about family, about the things that have stayed with us and the things that have changed. I went to work, came home for lunch, fixed something simple, and we sat together again. In the evenings we had dinner and reminisced about my brother, about growing up, about people we love and some we’ve lost.
And in between all of it, I got to show her the things that give me pleasure. The streets I’ve come to know. The town I’ve called home for over twenty years. She got to see my decorations, how I’ve arranged my space, what I’ve chosen to surround myself with.
It was special for her. I could see it.
And it was special for me in a way I’m still sitting with.
There’s something about being the host, about being the one who pours the coffee, fixes the lunch, shows the way, that feels tender and right. She’s still my mother. I’m still her son. But when she’s here, in my home, I get to take care of her in my space. And that matters in a way that’s hard to put into words.
Weeks like this one are worth paying attention to. Not because anything dramatic happened, but because we were simply together, in an ordinary week, doing ordinary things.
That’s the thing about cherishing the people we love. It rarely looks like a grand gesture. It looks like coffee in the morning. Lunch at the kitchen table. An evening spent remembering.
It looks like this week.
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