Returning to the nest
As he headed upstairs to the guest room, my son told me not to fuss in the morning.
“I don’t eat breakfast, you know,” he said over one shoulder as he slung his bag over the other. That bit of information was something I’d known but had forgotten, and now that he was in my house, I would choose to ignore it.
It is almost ridiculous how happy it made me to make that young man breakfast – the kind of happy that 20 years ago was the result of seeing a good report card, or watching his middle school football team win a game, or getting photos of him all dressed up for a school dance.
What is it about making breakfast for my adult kid?
The last time I was in the same room with my son was a year ago, when he’d come home from the west coast for Christmas. Already too long, these recent years feel like decades to me now. The complications of his busy schedule and my post-cancer-treatment leg condition that makes long plane flights tricky put those thousands of miles between us. We’ve had to make do with FaceTime chats, which are something but not the same.
This time I would get one breakfast with him, the realities of an adult whose life and relationships have expanded into a whole spectrum of a sister and mom and dad and grandparents and future in laws. Oh, and friends – college friends whom he’d stopped by to visit before ending his evening with me.
There were so many gaps to fill in. He’d gotten engaged, and I finally heard the story of how he’d proposed along a stream in the California mountains. His job in TV production was busy and progressing. Talk, talk, talk into the night and then, the trip up the stairs.
I was up earlier than usual. Pulled the pancake mix from the back of the shelf. Put on the tea kettle. I’d even bought bacon for the occasion.
As it sizzled in the pan, my mind went back to those middle school years, when a half-dozen buddies would end up at our house for the night. Come morning, sleepy, gangly boys would tumble down the stairs, eyes bleary, barely able to articulate a sentence.
As they folded themselves onto the big sofa, or the floor, I became a short order cook, whipping batter and cracking eggs and keeping an eye on the bacon. They’d wander to the table or, if there were only three of them, to the island counter. That was my favorite seating arrangement; with my spatula aloft I would hold court there between the kids and the stove.
“Another pancake?” I asked as my son sat in the sun at the kitchen nook Wednesday morning. He’s 27 now, robust and bearded. I noticed the one reddish curl hanging on his forehead.
“You still have the curl,” I said.
He ate one pancake, a few pieces of bacon and some grapes. Between bites he told me all the things. If he’d asked me to whip up a tiramisu for breakfast dessert, I’d have happily done it. Such are mornings when your grown up kid is, finally, at your table, sipping tea.
What is it about making breakfast? I guess it’s the talking and the catching up. It’s the mothering part of feeding your own. But most of all, his sitting to eat breakfast at my table means my kid slept under my roof that night, as it once used to be.
After all this time, he slept in my nest.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.