Thursday, August 7, 2014

Breakfast Burritos are Love


Last weekend, as the thunderheads piled up in the western sky and the temperature went up and up and up, and so did the humidity, I escaped the desert for a little bit. Mr. Melissa and I headed down to San Diego to spend the weekend. It's strange--I don't spend a lot of my life contemplating San Diego on a map, so it's easy to forget that this laid-back city  is only 22 miles from the Mexico-US border. (((boggles))) It's a really delightful place, and it's Ground Zero for the folks that I'm slowly coming to know as my West Coast Family.

In a one bedroom apartment, across the street from the Pacific Ocean, there lives a woman whose heart and spirit really shouldn't fit in that tiny-ass little space. That's my mother-in-law, Connie-Mom, as I call her. I'm told that we're blessed with a pretty fucking unusual relationship--we seem to adore eachother quite a bit. She thinks I'm good for her son (wow) and I think she's just the kindest and most accepting person I've ever met. She's a cat-loving liberal who loves to read. She doesn't bat an eyelash at my extensive and creative use of the fuck-word. Needless to say, we get along famously.

It probably doesn't hurt that she's a mental health counselor.

Last December, after my mother passed away, Connie-Mom came to stay for an evening. While Mr. Melissa was out celebrating his birthday with all of his closest friends, Connie-Mom and I stayed at home and sat on the couch and drank wine and looked at the Christmas tree, and she listened as I tried as best I could to process my grief and sorrow and regret and anger and confusion. Never once did she judge me. She only listened and offered perspective and loved me.

So spending a lazy weekend in San Diego, with the rain falling gently outside, with my Connie-Mom fussing over me inside, wasn't exactly the greatest hardship of my life. Even in that little apartment. We were both pleasantly pleased, I think--I try hard to be a low-maintenance houseguest, and we just spent our days playing with the cats and reading and talking and listening to music.

On Sunday morning, as I lay in bed, reading, Connie-Mom bustled into the bedroom. "Do you want any breakfast?"

"No, I'm fine," I assured her.

"I don't mind running out to the Little Mexican Taco Shop (TM) and getting you a breakfast burrito."

"You are so good to me! But I'm okay." I returned to my book. But twenty minutes later, Connie-Mom was back in the bedroom...

"I don't usually have the chance to dote on my daughters! I want to take care of you!"

As I processed her words, I thought about the women that I've worked with--my quiet envy as they spoke of their daughters, and all the ways these women have loved, and taken care of, and sacrificed for them. The way they'd get so excited when their daughters came to town, so they could mother them, take care of them, cook for them, make sure they were set-up.

"Okay," I said, a smile growing on my face as all these remembrances passed through my head. "I'll take you up on that breakfast burrito."

1 comment:

  1. I think that is lovely. And I tell you without a bit of shame - I greedily embrace and consume all of the mother-love that well intentioned people throw my way. We are, and have been, experiencing a severe deficit of the stuff.

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