A Time to Treasure

Most of you know that I finally came to meet my mom for the first time in twenty-six and a half years last month, and that she has been staying with me for the past five weeks. If you are friends with me on Facebook, you also might be aware that I took her to see several places around the Northeast such as Niagara Falls, New York City, Onondaga Lake Park (the setting of my Salamander short story series), The Zoo (my first ever visit to a zoo), etc. What also I touched on was the visits from my cousins and uncle, entertaining our neighbors (twice), locating the local Russian/Ukrainian store in town, going to see a Christmas play, and the numerous, entertaining yet uber-competitive Monopoly and Sorry games.

Today, my mom returned to her native Moldova as her vacation is nearly over and we had extended her stay here for an extra twelve days. There are a lot of things I learned from her and I realized her and I share more than the titles of mother and son. The time we spent together was filled with laughter, drinking, eating, playing, and exploring. I now look back and realize there is nothing to be sad about her leaving; we had a great time and it's time for her to go back so we can both focus on our other aspects of life - mainly professional- and prepare for the next time we meet. We both have visions of a future that involves both of us and now we set off to work out the individual bits of those visions so we can fuse them together in unison soon.

I can't cry, not because I don't want to, but because crying would be disrespecting Existence for this chance many people don't get, and would also show me as unappreciative of that chance. I will see her again and, if I don't, who am I to question and cry over what wasn't meant to be?
As we headed to the airport, Prince's "1999" was playing on the radio and fewer songs would have been appropriate for the moment as the words "Life is a party and parties aren't meant to last" spoke to us about our moment together. This was a party but now it's time to head home and prepare for the next party.  
So, tonight I'm going back to writing and reading...I'm going to toss back a few shots of her special, homemade cherry liqueur in celebration of our time together. I will offer a prayer of thanksgiving and move on to tomorrow without a hint of sadness in my step because I have - truly - had a time to treasure.