My mom, Helen, called me last Tuesday. She’s 82.
“Michael,” she said, her voice thin over the phone, “I need you to help me buy a new television. A big one. A ‘smart’ one.”
I almost laughed. My mom still uses a boxy Magnavox from 2003. She tapes her favorite soap operas. She thinks “streaming” is what a leaky faucet does.
My first thought? Annoyance. Pure, unfiltered, middle-aged-son annoyance. I’ve got a project deadline that’s breathing down my neck. My daughter has a travel soccer tournament in Wisconsin this weekend. The markets are volatile. And now, I have to play tech support and fight off some fast-talking salesman at an electronics big-box store.
“Mom, just tell me what you want, I’ll order it online,” I said, already clicking my mouse. “It’ll be there in two days. Easy.”
“No,” she said. The word was quiet, but firm. “I… I need you to come with me. To the store.”
The sigh I let out was heavy enough to feel. “Fine, Mom. I’ll clear an hour. I’ll be there around two.”
I drove the familiar 25-minute route to the suburbs of Detroit, to the little 1960s ranch house I grew up in. Faded gray vinyl siding, the big oak tree my dad planted now towering over the roof.
Dad’s been gone for three years. The house has been too quiet ever since.
I walked in, and the smell hit me—that specific, trademarked scent of “Mom’s House.” Faintly of the pot roast from Sunday and… Pledge? Yes. Lemon Pledge.
She was waiting by the door, already in her good coat, slippers swapped for her “going out” shoes.
“Okay, Mom, let’s go,” I said, keys still in my hand. “We’ve got to beat the traffic.”
“Oh, good,” she said, but she didn’t move toward the door. She shuffled into the kitchen. “I put a pot of coffee on. Can we… can we just sit for a minute?”
I looked at my watch. 2:10 PM. My internal clock was screaming. This is inefficient. A 40-minute round trip for a ‘minute’ of coffee?
But I sat. At the old Formica table, the one with the chrome legs and the faint cigarette burn from my Uncle Frank back in 1985. The one where I’d scratched my initials with a protractor in ninth grade.
She poured two cups of coffee—the same instant brand she’s been drinking for 40 years.
We talked. Not about anything important. Just… things. The neighbor’s new roof. The fact that the squirrels are getting too fat from the bird feeder. She asked about my kids, and I gave her the usual, “They’re good. Busy.”
I was antsy. My phone buzzed on the table. An email from my boss. A text from my wife about the hotel for the tournament. I glanced at it.
“Oh, you’re busy,” she said, starting to get up. “We can go…”
“No, Mom, it’s fine.”
She sat back down. Then, she reached across the Formica and put her hand over mine. Her skin was like paper, but her grip was familiar.
“Michael,” she said, looking at my phone, then at my eyes. “I don’t really need a television.”
I froze.
“I asked about the TV,” she whispered, “because I didn’t know how else to get you to come over. It’s the only thing I thought you’d think was ‘worth the trip.’ I… I just get so lonely.”
That sentence broke me. Right there at the wobbly kitchen table.
It shattered me into a million pieces.
This woman—who sat on freezing aluminum bleachers for every high school football game I ever played.
This woman—who worked extra shifts at the Hudson’s department store for an entire Christmas season just so I could have a decent, safe car when I turned sixteen.
This woman—who packed casseroles and leftovers into plastic containers for me to take back to college, worried I wasn’t eating enough.
She gave me her entire life. Her time, her energy, her youth.
And now, in her smaller, quieter world—a world shrunk by age and loss, a world where my dad’s empty coffee mug still sits, clean, on the counter—all she needs is the one thing I treat like a scarce commodity.
An ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
She felt she had to invent a problem to get her son to visit. She had to create a “task” so my visit would feel “productive.”
I realized how often I’ve done this. How many times I’ve said, “I’ll call next week,” or “I’ll stop by when things slow down.” How I’ve let work, bills, meetings, and the endless, screaming noise of my own “urgent” life take priority.
We tell ourselves our parents “understand” that we’re busy. We think our “like” on their Facebook post is “checking in.” We send a text. We order them groceries on an app and call it “taking care of them.”
We are fools.
A text message is not a conversation. A grocery delivery is not a hug. A “Happy Birthday” post on their wall is not the same as sitting in their kitchen, breathing the same air, and listening to the same story about the fat squirrels for the tenth time.
That’s the currency of their world now. Not dollars. Not achievements. Not efficiency.
Just presence.
When I finally looked up, my eyes stinging, I realized the house didn’t feel empty at all. It felt… full.
Because I was there.
I realized when she said she was “lonely,” what she really meant was: “When you’re here, I feel like I still matter.”
She felt seen. She felt loved. She felt like her life, in this quiet house, still had meaning—because I showed up.
We never went to the electronics store. I stayed for two hours. We drank that bad instant coffee and just talked. I put my phone in my coat pocket and left it there.
One day, I know I’ll drive down that familiar street, and the porch light won’t be on. The kitchen will be dark. The kettle won’t whistle. The chair by the window—the one she waits in, watching for my car—will be empty.
And I know, with an ache that already terrifies me, I would trade every “urgent” meeting, every project deadline, every soccer tournament, every dollar I’ve ever chased… for one more ordinary Tuesday. One more cup of terrible coffee. One more hour to just… sit.
If you’re reading this, and you’re lucky enough to still have them, go.
Don’t wait for Christmas or Thanksgiving. Don’t wait for a “reason.” And God forbid, don’t wait for them to have to invent one.
Go sit at the old table. Drink the bad coffee. Listen to the story you know by heart. Put your phone away.
Because to them, your time isn’t just a visit.
It’s not an “errand.”
It’s love.
It’s life.
It’s everything.
The porch light that had glowed my whole childhood went dark on a wet Wednesday, and I realized it wasn’t a bulb I’d been replacing all these years — it was a promise.
Continue Reading 📘 Part 2….
