I was honored to be accepted to the English Speaking Union Shakespeare Program one summer at the Globe Theatre in London.
I spent three weeks absorbing Shakespearean text and living as an adult, away from home in a dorm. I was homesick for my children from the minute I got on the plane at SFO, and throughout the entire time I was there. I felt I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I had never been away from my children for more than two days at a time. Needless to say, they did not miss me as much as I missed them. Which I guess is a good thing.
One afternoon, as I was feeling extremely depressed about being so far away from home, a letter had arrived from my mother. I immediately sat down on the stairs by the mail room and started to cry, even before opening it. I finally opened the letter and devoured my mother’s handwriting.
My mother had saved me, once again, with her comforting words, her wisdom, her ability to make me feel loved from afar, and with her reminder of how homesick I was when I was at 4-H camp the one and only summer I went. I remember the letter she sent me at 4-H camp and how it was my lifeline to what I knew and what was familiar.
None of my friends at the Globe program in London that summer received a letter from their Mom. But I did. There is this special responsibility in being a good mother. Keeping them safe through words on a page is as powerful and as important as being in the room with them.
Thank you Mom.
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