I was doing great until I heard that a bomb went off in Athens. My eldest son goes to Greece on Thursday. I am already anxiously awaiting his return on April 27th. “I know the feeling” Mom said to me, to which I haughtily replied “You know what it’s like to send your kid to a place where a bomb just went off?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to suck them back in. “Uh, yeah, I do.” she said, referencing my time in Venezuela during a little coup d’etat. I had to call Mom and Dad to tell them to not visit me that week. “You’re telling me that it’s not safe for us to come but it’s safe for you to stay?” That was 23 years ago this weekend. Poor Mom and Dad, I’m sure Dad bore a hole in his head rubbing it from worry and saying his prayers.
Mom and Dad did eventually visit me after that whole coup thing. We had a great trip together, all with the sound of the cacerolazo anytime Chávez got on tv. Many would take to banging on their pots and pans or lean on their car horns whenever the dictator du jour spoke. I can still hear it over the sound of the coqui frogs. I loved it, it was thrilling to hear a nation speak back.
“Well, I’m not telling Dad that.” Mom said after I told her I was using public transport to explore remote villages of the Venezuelan Andes. It was a month before I was due to come home and I wasn’t going to spend that month unwisely. Venezuela, a nation rich in oil, had begun to crumble under the misguided leadership of a corrupt populist turned authoritarian. My leaving was less choice and more necessity. We took roads that looked half gone, I once had to clamber out the back of a bus that suddenly caught fire mid trip. Sometimes I forget how ridiculous I was back then, back when I thought I knew everything. Of course Mom gets worrying about your kids, silly me for thinking anything else.
Now, a quarter century later, I have three kids that I’m desperately trying to keep alive and well, forever worrying about anything that can wreck that plan. Yes, Mom knows what it’s like and I made sure I told her as much—“I put you through a little hell, huh?” I asked. “Yes, you did. So when I say ‘I know the feeling’, I really do.” Then we moved on to watching 60 Minutes. This show doesn’t make me feel much better about the world, I’m still upset about that bomb that went off. But, he’s going, he’ll be fine, and so will I. The nest, comfy though it may be, is not meant to be forever. Fly the coop, buddy. The world is your spanokopita. Opa!