On each, she wrote, “Don’t wait too long to tell someone what they mean to you.”
***
A week later, Rebecca mailed Mom a photo of Evelyn outside the hotel on its opening day.
Mom framed it beside our family pictures.
I took pictures.
I’d spent two years saving for my mom’s first beach vacation.
I thought the greatest gift would be letting her hear the ocean outside her bedroom.
Instead, I helped her discover that a friend she’d mourned for decades had never stopped caring for her.
I’d spent two years saving.
***
Last Sunday, Mom called me.
“Michael, do you think we could go back next summer?”
I laughed. “Mom, I’ve already started saving.”
