Dilemma. The first real one, and only 9 days in.
My son, Owen, called to see if I wanted to have breakfast (at 1:00 p.m.) with him and his girlfriend, Lara. Lara lives in Spain and is here visiting for three weeks. I offered to take them to Walker Brothers Pancake House, but Owen asked me if we could go to Egg Harbor Cafe. I happily said yes and planned to meet them there. As I was taking a shower, I started to think about breakfast and how this technically is a luxury. Going out to eat anywhere is a luxury. I also assumed that I was going to be the one paying for lunch since I'm the only one amongst the three of us who is gainfully employed. How was I going to do this? It would break my challenge.
I called Owen and asked him who he thought would pay. It was an awkward moment...I had never put him on the spot before, and asking him implied that perhaps it wasn't going to be me who coughed up the greenbacks. Seriously, a question like that is a joke! He's 18, in college and not employed....who else was going to pay? I told him I couldn't go because of my challenge, and then offered to make them breakfast. To try and get around it, I even asked him if it was about spending quality time with me (lol), or was it about the food? Did I mention that he's 18 and in college? Of course it was about the food! His answer was actually humble in the mumble that it was about the place and food. And then it dawned on me -- Egg Harbor Cafe is the special breakfast place that Owen and I have gone to a gazillion times.
My son has suffered from asthma for years. The summer he got sick -- before he was diagnosed with it -- we were staying in my in-laws' cottage in Frankfort, MI (you remember Frankfort, right? Home of The Smokestack.). In this land of woods, lakes and a 15-bed hospital is where his body decided to present asthma. He would be fine all day, playing at the beach, eating, going places with his friends, and then every night the coughing would begin. I stayed up with him as he hacked his lungs into a barf bucket, and after the third night of no sleep for either of us, I took him to see a doctor, who ended up being a nurse practitioner. (I am not making any statements about nurse practitioners -- I love them and think our medical world would be in dire straits without them!) The doctor put Owen on antibiotics and sent us on our merry way. Two nights later -- long enough to get the meds in his system -- he was still coughing up his lungs. I called our pediatrician at home who cleverly diagnosed him over the phone and called in a prescription for inhalers and prednisone (because he was so bad). Owen was on his way to getting over this episode but not before he had an allergic hive reaction to shrimp, and being so worn out by the time we drove home, that he spent the 6-hour drive home in a sleepy stupor -- but he wasn't coughing.
So began our voyage into the Asthmatic Ocean. Over the next couple of years we rode the stormy waves in a raft of peak flow meters, Albuterol and nebulizers. I was constantly taking Owen to the doctor's office where they would nebulize him 3 times before the doc could hear any improvement in his little lungs. Anyone who has been treated with a nebulizer knows that it takes hours to get the treatments, so we'd leave the doctor's office and stop at Egg Harbor Cafe because Owen would be so hungry. No doubt the treatments included steroids and everyone knows how hungry steroids make a person! Egg Harbor Cafe became our special place where we'd both heal from the day -- Owen healing his lungs, and me healing my wounded and worried heart because my son was so sick. Whenever Owen had an appointment at the doctor's office we would make it a point to stop there and eat. It's been eight years since we first started going there, and if we were going to declare an "our restaurant," it would be Egg Harbor.
All these memories danced through my head as I was thinking about Owen wanting to go there with me and his girlfriend. Like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes because I realized that he wanted to share this special thing we had with the new woman in his life. Call it rationalization, but suddenly going to Egg Harbor with Owen and Lara became a necessity. So we went, and I paid. The food was delicious, the company was extraordinary, it was a lot of fun and I was able to -- once again -- bond with my son (and his girlfriend) at the Egg Harbor Cafe. Owen and memories put buying lunch at Egg Harbor on my list of necessities because these are the kinds of things that make us who we are, love the way we do, and remember the most precious moments and memories -- even if they are made because some you love is hacking up a lung.
Sentimentally Yours,
Karrie
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