I pulled into the driveway after 11:00 p.m. on a Wednesday, commuting the long hour after a long City Council meeting.  The garage light shone through the door’s glass panes.  How convenient, I could have thought.  I would not have to gather my things and make my way to the house door in the dark.  Instead, I thought about how Mom had been thinking of me that day and that night, and how she had made a point of turning on the light for me, to make my path bright and easy.  And I thought about Mom and Dad sitting me down first thing every night to ask me about my day, in the process teaching me the consideration of asking them about their day—now, I try to ask them first.  And I thought about how they answer the phone every day to listen to one of their beloved daughters, the troubles and worries and defeats and victories.  And I remembered how Mom was there when I had my tonsils removed (1968), and my appendix removed (1982), gangrenous and tight, and my knee reconstructed and my leg immobilized for six weeks (during the dark ages of 1983), and my hernias patched (2012) and how in their 80s they brought me home to recover from my last surgery (2019), along with a pot of homemade chicken-vegetable soup.  And I remember how Mom gathered us on Monday nights after fried pork chops to teach us a new church song, posterboard prompts held high, and Dad expounded his lifetime of scriptural insights, which bless me deeply every day, and how we ended with donuts or ice cream or rice pudding or little bowls of M&Ms.  And I ponder their devotion and sacrifice and how they deserve my devotion and sacrifice.  So, when I saw the garage light on, I jolted with the sudden but not-surprising awareness that their light has always been on for me.

(Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay )