Memories tend to come up like starfish from the depths to remind us of things we need to know.
Last week, my husband and I visited his son Joe, wife Juli and their three children. We stayed at the home of Juli’s father and his partner, who live near them, and they treated us like royalty. It was a long way from the days when my big southern family would pile into my grandmothers place and I would have to sleep in the bathtub with several cousins.
Family visits don’t have to be luxury vacations. They just have to happen often enough that we get to know each other well and never forget that we are family.
We stayed two nights and could have stayed longer. But my son and his wife and two children were due to visit us soon and I had things to do. It had been three months since our last visit. I could hardly wait.
When we got home, I looked at my phone and saw a missed call and a text from my son. He is an actor in a TV show that has gone on hiatus before starting a new season. He said he just found out he had to go back to work earlier than expected. So they had to postpone the visit.
It took me a minute to get over the disappointment. I knew he was disappointed too, and I didn’t want him to hear it in my voice. Then I called him to tell him not to worry, I understand, we will meet soon. I meant what I said. But I missed my boy. I also missed his wife and sweet kids. But for some reason, I especially missed Josh.
It was strangely how I felt the day he left home for college. His dad and I helped carry his stuff into his new room, met his roommates, gave him a big hug, said our goodbyes, and left. I did it without shedding a single tear. Until it disappeared. Then I cried like a newborn calf.
I had spent 18 years raising that boy. He was not a soldier going to war. I was a high school graduate, smart, reliable, and mature, going to college to do things I didn’t want to think about. I wasn’t worried about him. Maybe it should have been. But I just missed him.
He wanted us to always know each other and be as close as we had always been. I didn’t want him to ever… forget me.
That’s how I felt that day as I watched him through the back window saying goodbye to his new life. It seems silly now. In many ways, we have become even closer over the years. And yet, I felt that way again when I heard they weren’t coming to see us.
The next day, my husband and I were running errands when I heard a song on the radio that brought back this memory:
The first time Josh came home from college, he was waiting. He climbed in with a big smile and the back seat full of dirty clothes.
“Hey mom,” he said, hugging me tightly. When he hugs you, you know you’ve been hugged. “I brought you something.”
“I see,” I said, laughing and nodding in the backseat.
“Not that,” he said, “that.”
He handed me a cassette tape he had titled “Songs 4 Mom”.
“I think you’ll like it,” he said.
I didn’t like it. I loved it. He had recorded some of my favorite songs (by Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, The Temptations and others) plus some that he said he knew I would like if I heard them.
“Where did you find all this?”
“I had some,” he said, “and borrowed the rest.”
“How did you know all these songs were my favorites?”
He looked at me, laughed and said, “I know you, Mom.”
The tape included “Addicted to Love” by Robert Palmer. It was the song I had heard on the radio that triggered this memory.
I played that tape countless times, especially when the kid was leaving to go back to college. I have no idea how I missed it. I’m not good at keeping up with things. But I’m fierce about holding on to the people I love.
We need to know that we will always be known and remembered by those who matter most to us.
