Childhood nostalgia

I went back to see my mom on Friday and Saturday last week. As I drove through the Main Line on Saturday morning on my way from my sister's house to the rehab facility, which is just down the street from Haverford College, I thought about similar beautiful Saturday mornings throughout my children’s school years. During those years, at 9:30 on a Saturday morning, I’d have been at a swim meet or a track meet or a baseball game or on my way to one of those things. I loved that time, but I don’t miss it as much as I did the first year after my youngest graduated. And of course we still have college swimming, which is the greatest.

But I still miss it a little bit. I drove past the Haverford YMCA, wondering if they have a swim team, and if there was a meet going on. I pulled up to the Wawa to pick up my mom’s coffee and I listened in on the coffee station conversations - parents had just dropped kids off at lacrosse and baseball practices, or were on their way to games and picking up coffee and snacks for the morning. Some of them were harried younger parents, still figuring out how to manage spring sports along with everything else. The senior parents, the ones whose kids are in their last year or two of high school, seemed happy and a little smug. I remember that feeling during my younger son’s senior year and his last summer of summer swimming - I was happy and a little smug and also a little sad that it was all ending. I thought about saying something, just joining the conversation for a few minutes, but I decided not to. I paid for our coffees and was on my way.

*****
My mom was up and about when I arrived; or as close to as up and about as she can be right now. She had already had breakfast and was dressed for the day, and she seemed ready to do something. Her spirits were high, which was nice to see. I told her that I’d seen a “Deport Elon Musk” sign, with an Uncle Sam illustration, on the front lawn of a very nice Main Line house. “Good for them,” she said. “Maybe I’ll get one too. As far as I’m concerned, all the other immigrants can stay, but they need to send that Elon back to South Africa.” Damn right, Mom.

The nurse said that my mom was well enough to go out, so we went out - lunch at a nice little neighborhood spot called Angelo’s Cafe, and book shopping at Barnes and Noble. My mom had crepes for lunch because why shouldn’t she, and she bought a gardening magazine and two illustrated Philadelphia history books. She sat and read her books while I shopped a bit to spend a gift card that had been burning a hole in my pocket. The walk back to the car wore her out a bit, and we headed back to the Quadrangle. She was tired enough that she needed the wheelchair for the trip back to her room, but she had a good time. We sat looking at our new books together, and my mom showed me photos of the places that she remembered from her Philadelphia childhood and mine.