Getting older with my mom
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Carlie and her mom share a cochon de lait at Jazz Fest last month. Photo: Carlie Kollath Wells/Axios
One unexpected gift of adulthood is realizing your parents are people, too.
Why it matters: As mine get older, I've become more intentional about enjoying the time we have together.
The big picture: My mom was very clearly "Mom" to my brother, sister and me growing up. She was the adult and she was in charge.
- She handled everything while my dad worked. Meals. Laundry. Discipline. Transportation.
- Looking back, it's no wonder she fell asleep on the couch during the rare moments when she sat down to "rest her eyes for a few."
Zoom in: We're grown now with our own families, and she has embraced her grandma role wholeheartedly.
- She's dispensed wisdom and helped us through broken air-conditioning units, broken bones and broken cars — often traveling from out of state to save the day.
- She's also navigated her own share of health troubles along the way.
For now, we're all healthy and happy.
- And somewhere in between caring for kids and doing the dishes, our relationship changed.
- We started having the kinds of conversations adults have — honest ones that have helped us both heal.
- I don't take that for granted.
My parents are getting older. Many of my friends are making hard choices about their parents' care or grieving the ones they've lost.
- My mom's mom died young. All my grandparents are gone.
- So I'm trying to make the most of the time we have together.
- My parents love travel shows, but my mom spent so many years sacrificing for the rest of us that she rarely got to see much herself.
- Recently, we convinced her to cross a bucket-list item off with us: Disney World. Then my brother convinced her to get a passport so she could join us in Cancun.
Last month, she went to Jazz Fest with me for the first time ever.
- I assumed we'd spend the day in the Gospel Tent. Instead, we wound up grooving to reggae at Congo Square — while my mom sang along with Bob Marley's son.
- Color me flabbergasted.
But maybe that's the gift of this stage of life: Realizing your parents still have surprises left in them.
- I'm grateful I'm old enough now to appreciate mine.
Between the lines: Mother's Day can be complicated.
- For those navigating grief, strained relationships or unfulfilled hopes of motherhood, I'm thinking of you and hoping you find comfort this weekend.