Visiting my 88-year-old mother is part of my weekly rhythm. I don’t know what she’ll remember about dad or our long history together. That is no longer distressing as it makes for good improv. Whatever my mother says I can say, “Yes and… “ and run with it.
There is one string of thought, however, that can be relied on. That happens when my mother remembers the house, her house now my house. It is our house and it is our often repeated conversation.
Mom: You live in Ferry Farms now?
Me: Yes, Mom.
Mom: You know what’s so great about that house?
Me: (I do but I say) What’s that mom?
Mom: Living two minutes from the Navy Commissary!
This makes absolute sense for a woman who raised 12 kids. Being single-digit minutes from a grocery store is one of the best features of this house! But more than a nearby grocery store the Navy Commissary is a modern town square. Chances are at frequent points you’ll not just get your groceries but also run into someone who knows your name. Cheers without beer (for that you go to the Exchange!) Even with expecting to see someone you know and who knows you it is easy to take for granted except when you get a surprise.
This past Friday, I couldn’t believe walking in the chip aisle and seeing her with her walker. Mrs. Inman looked like she always did with her clean dress and a great smile! Raised in the south I could hear her North Carolina accent in her happy greeting. She recognized me immediately and greeted me by name! These days I repeat my name even for my classmates although she looked hurt that I thought she needed reminding. I introduced her to my 17-year-old daughter because she just wasn’t my mother’s friend who had shared pool deck space during long hours of age group swimming. She was my best friend’s mother. In that role, she had fed me countless meals connected to equally countless sleepovers. It seemed in a two-year span, her daughter Barbee and I just exchanged homes for each summer. This was the woman who taught me to sew my first blouse, how to pull salt water taffy. The woman who gave me a handwritten recipe book of her favorites that I still pull out 40+ years later. The woman who owned an innovative gourmet coffee shop in the pre-Starbucks era which I always stopped by on my visits back home. Such a brief visit and yet the smile and sight linger for me as a reminder of friendship and faithful kindness.
The best part of my house isn’t living 2 minutes from a grocery store. No, the best part is living 2 minutes from a place where you can reconnect to people with whom you have shared years of experience where whether you are known as your parent’s child or as a shipmate, or as a neighbor you are always known as a friend.
Where do you go where people know you? I hope you live in that kind of community. Please share.