Why I'm Ready to Kiss 2007 Goodbye

A A A Comments Thursday, Dec 13 2007

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He talked all through lunch about his classes. He and his friends launched into discussions of the deep, meaning-of-life questions, typical college-boy questions, but then he turned the conversation back to include me. "What would you like to do while you're here?" he asked, and suggested some bike trails, some hikes. He asked if I could take him to the cell-phone place so that he could get his account transferred from the broken cell phone to an old one that worked. Then I offered to take him to Costco.

"That'd be great."

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"What's on your list?"

"Eggos, salami, bread, the usual."

"Any fruit?"

"No, but I'd like to get a mop."

My boy was back. Not back as he was before he hated me. Not the little guy who'd run up and throw his arms around me, not the fifth-grader who would recite Simpsons episodes verbatim in the back seat of the car on the way back from hockey games.

But he'd hit rock bottom in squalor, in meanness and in irresponsibility, and somehow, he'd climbed back. Maybe I had done some things right as a mother. Here was a new young man. One whom I'm going to enjoy getting to know in 2008.

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