Sitting here this morning, alone on my sunlit porch, coffee at my side, birds singing, I am having an "Ahhhh" moment. Much as I appreciated my 'dear old mum' coming to visit for 14 days, I hadn't realized I had been holding my breath for much of it. And, as my dh lovingly reassured me, it was ok to have felt somewhat "claustrophobic" after the firsts 2 or 3 days because, when I thought about it, I realized it was the same as having almost 11 years of visits squeezed into 14 days. We have never spent much time together, my folks and we (meaning my little family of 4), not since I was under 18 and still living at home. This 14 days of, say 14 hrs together each of those days, works out to 98 hours; past average length of visits was 2 hours per visit = 49 visits, and one visit about every 3 or 4 months (which had been pretty much the norm the past 40 years) = yup, 11 years . Well, having explained all that, I hope she had a good time while here as she has never gotten out and about much and this was a true adventure for her. Travelling all alone to southern California. She has never been much of a traveller, in fact one "overseas" trip to Hawaii about 25 years ago is pretty much the extent of her worldly travels. She's maybe been on an aircraft 3 times in her entire lifetime. Dad was a "camper"and fly fisherman, they did enjoy (well HE did) countless journeys to various local area lakes in B.C. and one major trip driving across Canada after retirement, and from what little my mother told me, not the most fun trip. But thats another story. I can remember as a small child all 5 of us sleeping head to toe in a small tent, many summer weekends, as well as spending 10 hrs at a stretch in a small aluminum fishing boat with him. Anyways, back to mom. My dad passed away, bless his soul, a year ago,and mom is only now discovering her wings. That she has some. That she can make choices and decisions on her own. So this revelation is what has recently, very recently, brought about her "plan" to start spending time with her 3 daughters with whom she has had such limited interaction the past 40 or so years. Ours was never your "fathers knows best" family, but nowadays I wonder how many really are. To be completely honest ours was your classic dysfunctional family. So we shall see how this plays out in the years to come, whether mom and me can really actually become "true friends" as she seems to think we already are. Her reality, her memories, are a little different than mine. Perhaps we CAN get 'past the past', or will there be enough time?