Mother’s Day makes me think  of the time I visited my daughter for an overnight, in her very first place of her own, right out of college.   She had landed a job after enough rejections to cover a whole wall. 

I looked at her that morning, dressed in her tailored suit of light gray, holding a briefcase, amazed.  Could this be the child that I had to walk to kindergarten every day for two weeks until I convinced her she could walk the path alone?  Could she actuallly be out in the world selling business forms? 

“Make yourself at home,” my daughter said before she left.  She put down her briefcase and gave me a hug.  Then she went out the door, briefcase in hand.  A part of me went with her. 

After she left left, I drank a cup of tea from the heart-covered mug we sent her for Valentine’s Day when she was in college.   On her coffee table lay copies of Business Week and Time.  She threw out her issues of Seventeen when she came home to retrieve her belongings.  We watched as she pulled out of the driveway,  a U-haul trailer in tow.  

Months later, when I arrived for my visit, the towels lay on the bed for me just the way I always put them out for her on trips home from college.  She served me a cold drink.  Offered me a snack.  Made me feel at home in her home.  It was like watching a movie of myself.  Our visit was short but we covered a lifetime of memories. Shared thoughts.  Ideas. Dreams for the future.  We laughed a lot.  

When it was time to leave, I grabbed a pen, a piece of note paper from her desk top and wrote a note thanking her for the visit.  I told her that we were so PROUD of her.  Then I went out the door, taking with me the hug she gave me earlier.   I left her home and headed for mine.  

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers.