Grown Son’s Visit

Zac gave this candle holder to us before he was married saying that’s how he saw us–with him secure in the middle.

Our son came into our bedroom at 4:00 a.m. this morning and said he was leaving now. Automatically I sat up and told Sam to get up. Son Zac said we didn’t have to get up, he could just slip out, but I was already putting on my robe and Sam was right behind me.

I had to get together a few items for him to eat on the road though I know he would have been fine without it. When I walked through the hall I saw his suitcase already standing, ready to go. Sam and I put together fruit, juice, nuts to munch and cranberry bread.

He had arrived three days earlier just before two in the afternoon. That six hour drive started after the sun had risen, but he was still earlier than we expected. Out of the blue he’d announced a few weeks earlier that he was coming and we’d been like kids waiting for Christmas ever since. He hadn’t seen the house we now lived in and I

Sarajane sent him with presents. She knows I love colorful dish ware.

wouldn’t be surprised if it was our very thoughtful daughter-in-law who suggested the visit. Sarajane has back problems that make long road trips difficult and the girls needed to be in school, so he came alone.

The past few years we’ve always gone to see them. With every visit I see my two granddaughters have grown. They’ve changed from little girls to now maturing teenagers soon ready to drive and plan for the SATs. Fewer changes are noticed on Zac and Sarajane. They are in the adult years that are so busy that nature itself seems unable to keep up with their pace and the changes on faces and bodies are few.

Zac “retired” before we did, but he has filled his days like a “working” person with service to nonprofits while he of course tends household funds. Three years ago when he announced he was leaving his very lucrative career to pursue working with nonprofits and extensive worldwide travel, I remembered that had been his stated goal sometime around his senior year in high school.

I had listened at that time, fully aware Zac had always been unusual in planning and conducting his life as a maestro. Sam and I started with zero assets, a modest wedding in my mother’s backyard and rings that totaled less than $100 for the two of them.

I would like to take credit for all he has accomplished. I am his mother, right? Yes, I certainly did have my influence, plus either Sam or I could have messed things up terribly for him. But I believe that every one of us has a unique core center we are born with that is ours to build on or destroy as we choose. I’m very pleased to have helped create an atmosphere and some guidance that allowed him to steer his life the way he wanted to go.

The second day of his visit we traveled the seventy miles to see his grandmother, my mother, and yesterday we attended a spring training game for the Chicago Cubs and The Colorado Rockies. The score was 0 for the hometown Cubs and a runaway 13 for the Rockies.

Last night Zac said he wanted to get an early start for home. He is a grown man with other people we love as much as him and being with them is where he now calls home. But I “remember when,” and he is always my boy.