Front Porch: Picturing sons where they live fills mom with ease

When I am feeling nostalgic or missing the company of my sons, it helps me to picture them where they are.

Unlike many of my friends, whose adult children live within minutes of them or at least within an hour’s drive, for us – for all of their adult lives, my sons, who are in their 40s, have made their homes in places other than Spokane.

One lived for a time on the East Coast, but has been in Seattle for many years now. The other – our rolling-stone first-born – has lived all over the world, from Beijing to Prague, Seoul to Barcelona, and spent time in Botswana, Madagascar and too many other places to mention.

I am happy that they are living the lives that make them happy, and they are good at keeping in touch. Texts, emails, phone calls.

Our younger son comes to Spokane from time to time, and we go see him in Seattle as often as possible. We have visited our older son in some of the places where he’s lived, but more often, he comes home to visit once a year, often staying for three weeks or a month, as he can work from wherever he is. COVID-19 has put a temporary stop to that, and we haven’t seen him in the flesh for two years now.

When we’re having a WhatsApp call and he tells me he’s just been to the market, I can visualize the walk up the hill from his flat, crossing the park and entering the little grocery store. I can do that because I’ve made the walk with him. If he’s in his living room, I know what that looks like because I’ve sat in the big chair there and felt the afternoon light streaming in on my face.

Yes, I know I could get the view through a FaceTime call, but it’s not the same as knowing what the environment is from personal experience, remembering the sounds of the place or how the breeze comes through the big tree outside his kitchen before it refreshes the room.

All of that puts me right there with him, so I feel closer. And I miss him less.

Our younger son just relocated within Seattle, moving from one neighborhood to another. At first I wasn’t so hot about the move, as there would be a loss of space in the new location, and it occurred to me that’s going to be a problem in time, as will the parking issue. Not my decision to make, of course, but moms do have (mostly unspoken) opinions. But he and his husband were eager to be in this other neighborhood and to enjoy the shops, restaurants and atmosphere of that area. They moved early in September and are so pleased with their new place.

A happy son makes for a happy mother. But I’ve been kind of uneasy not being able to “see” him there in my mind’s eye, even though he sent photos as they got some new pieces of furniture and set up their various rooms.

Bruce and I made a long-weekend trip to Seattle recently and visited some of those shops and restaurants with them, poked about the neighborhood and sat in the apartment and talked, also enjoying one of Sam’s wonderful home-cooked dinners, for which I got to be sous chef. It was the bomb cyclone weekend, so a lot of outdoor activity was not in the cards.

It was leisurely and wonderful. But what it did for my brain was to “fix” Sam in his environment, so when he tells me he’s in the living room watching a movie, I can picture that. I know which side of the couch he normally sits on, usually with his 70-pound lap-dog perched on some part of his body. I’ve sat there now and been graced with the presence of a Dalmatian across my lap myself.

Interesting. No matter how old our children are, we moms need certain things to feel at ease about them out in the world.

For me, this is what I need.

There’s nothing better than an actual hug, of course, but absent that, being able to picture someone you love where he or she lives, because you know the place and the environment first hand, is something of a virtual hug … the next best thing.

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Correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached at upwindsailor@comcast.net.