Both Sides Now- Facing Mother's Day with a slightly empty nest

My oldest son, Caleb, is away at tech school in Biloxi, Mississippi, so this will be my first Mother's Day in 19 years without him. He's actually been gone since mid-December when he went through basic training in San Antonio.

During his eight weeks at basic, communication was limited to three phone calls--right when he got there, to let us know he'd arrived OK, week four (which happened to be his birthday. That was a little detail that God worked out as a gift for me) and week seven, so we could go over graduation plans and the details of visiting him at the air force base (AFB, the first of MANY acronyms). No texting at all. No email. No facebook messaging.

But he could write letters! And he did, nearly every week. The excitement that filled my heart each time I flipped through the mail and saw his handwriting on the white #10 envelope was palpable. Most of the time he filled both the front and back of a sheet of the the yellow steno pad that we purchased for that purpose. We went back in time to the 1980s. I made a point to write him on Sunday nights, typing my letters on the computer and printing them out because my kids complain about not being able to read my cursive.

I was so excited to see Caleb at his graduation from basic training!

Now that he's in tech school, he isn't limited on his phone, so we text occasionally about random things. Occasionally he posts pictures of his days off on facebook.

So I was thinking about what I'd really like from him for Mother's Day, and a letter topped the list. A card would be nice, too. A phone call would be good, especially if he would take off his waterproof Otterbox phone cover, which muffles the sound and makes it hard for me to hear.

A FaceTime or Skype call would be wonderful. Our family is planning to go to the zoo, which is one of his very favorite places. It would be great if we could connect there. Maybe by the baboons. Which is an inside joke, because he HATES the baboons. When he was four or five he did something to get on their bad side and they threw sand at him. OK, maybe by the river otters or the statues of the grizzlies.

At any rate, I yearn to hear from him. And then I think about when I left home.

I didn't go far. My family lived on a farm eight miles northwest of Hillsboro, and I attended Tabor College, which is in Hillsboro. My mom worked in the library at Tabor, so I could walk over and see her each morning. But I didn't. I remember one semester, I think it was my junior year, I had a free hour in my schedule on Tuesdays (or something) so I would usually drop in and chat with her a bit at the check-out desk, but that semester was the exception, not the rule.

I didn't have weekend meals, so I did go home sometimes for lunch on Sundays. For my 19th birthday, on Sept. 10 I met my parents at a reception center on campus. I think I was too busy to come home for an entire evening (plus, I didn't have a car). They gave me a denim jacket, which I liked. Mom might have brought a cake, I don't remember. I do remember thinking it was nice that they came as I walked back to see what was happening in our dorm.

I don't remember ever thinking about how my mom might have been missing her daughter. How if at all possible she wanted to bake a cake and be with the girl on her birthday that she had baked cakes for each of the 18 previous years.

That kind of insight (hindsight) takes years to acquire.

In fact, it's taken me 27.