Our son has just finished 9 weeks of boot camp. He lugged all his worldly goods from the barracks to the bus which took them to the train station, changed trains twice and finally got to Geneva. His dad said, “Take a cab. We’ll give you the money when we visit next week.” He’s going to go to a small never-heard-of place in Swiss Germany for his 4-week training as a medic. The hospital’s website is only in German so my husband says, “Good. He’ll practice his German.” The army provides a flat where he will be sharing a room with other medics-in-training, with an officer to supervise them. The mom says, “Good. He’s not alone.”

He’s been back in Geneva since yesterday. No call. I had messaged him to tell him to call us because I have so many questions and well, I just want to hear his voice. His dad smd to ask if he had arrived and he replied, “Yes, sorry didn’t call you. Will do so tomorrow.” That’s today and it’s 9:30 p.m. Still no call. I didn’t dwell on it the whole day. I didn’t stop doing whatever it was I was doing. But now that the day is coming to an end, I wonder how he is. Then the old maxim comes to mind, “No news is good news.” He is enjoying hanging out with his friends.

I hope he thought of buying what he needs for his training up there because I won’t be around to mail him packages from Geneva. By the time it gets to him from our little hamlet in France we’ll be in Geneva.

A mother’s thoughts. A mother’s heart. Sons and daughters. They’re there all the time. However young or old they are. You can’t get away from them when they’re really young. Their need is constant and you have to be vigilant or they can hurt themselves. I’m very happy our son is independent and has his own studio and visited his prospective college on his own. I’m proud of him. I really am.

It’s just times like these that I wish he would pick up the phone and say Hi. And yet I smile at my husband when his mom hints that he hasn’t called her that often. Perspective.