I had just about completed another blog post when I received an email from my son last night. I decided to put that one on hold and write this one instead.

My son is a man of few words and very seldom do I receive an email from him. He asserts that he is fine, everything is fine, nothing is new so there is no point in sending emails. He doesn’t quite get that his mother treasures these rare messages of sparse wording. Or maybe he does.

The message last night was that the arcade in the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, North Dakota had closed. A flood of memories overwhelmed me. Flashbacks of weekend trips to Grand Forks over the years filled my head. My son was never into shopping in the mall when he was younger. The highlight was always the time spent in that arcade. And last night I was really moved that he had taken the time to send me that short message about the arcade.

That also brought back another memory. When I was pregnant with my son I spent a lot of time in bed for health reasons. I was determined to carry him to term and that required a much more sedentary life than I usually led. A friend introduced me to soap operas in order to pass the time. And I became a faithful follower of The Guiding Light. That meant that my son in utero was drawn into the drama of Josh and Reva as well. Shortly after my marriage ended, this show was cancelled. My son heard the news and phoned me. I was really touched by that phone call.

And then a third memory surfaced. When I was pregnant with my son, I used to read to him, sing to him, listen to music and dance with him. A bond between mother and child begins long before the actual birth of the baby. Some years later, in his teenage years, my son made me a CD with some music he thought I’d enjoy. To my amazement, many of these songs were the very ones he had heard in utero. Many of these had been long forgotten by me, and I’m sure that my son hadn’t heard these since he was in my womb. After all, it was the 90’s now and he was born in 1980.

Nothing lasts forever. Or does it? That mother-son bond remains strong. It just manifests itself in different ways. Perhaps because we live thousands of miles away in different countries, I have become more sensitive to this as I grow older. Love you Kyle!