Visiting

Things most of us take for granted, I couldn't. It was a little like lockdown in a jail. We were only allowed visitors once a month--and then only with family. And if your family lived four hundred miles away, you had to survive on a once a year visit. That's what my mom did. Left all the kids home with Dad and traveled the whole way to see me for a couple days. And then I didn't get to eat with her. She ate in the Guest Dining room by herself, while I ate in silence with my group in another. It felt very abnormal. I hated leaving Mom to herself after she'd driven four hundred miles to see me. For overnight, she had to get a motel room in the town three miles away. Very inhospitable. Obviously, I've never quite gotten over it.