Lunch with My Mother

Here’s an essay I wrote for the Reformed Journal…

The last time I had lunch with my mother had been fifteen months ago—in other words, before the pandemic.

A few months after the pandemic began, I came to see her at the assisted living facility and sang “Happy Birthday” to her. She came out to her fourth-floor balcony, and I stood on the ground below. My voice, as it turns out, doesn’t carry as well as I thought it did, and so I sang into my phone while my mother listened to hers. When I was finished, she said I sounded “wonderful.”

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