Cob had a school picnic in a nearby suburb yesterday, which gave us a chance to take a drive together – to and from. I love drives with just my youngest as he and I often have wonderful, candid, philosophical discussions.

On the way there, a sad topic was brought up. The mother of one of his schoolmates has been missing for over a week, and she still hasn’t been found. We discussed how, as horrible as a thing it would be, hopefully she just had a mental breakdown or something, and ran away from her family, rather than anything physically tragic happening to her.

Cob attended the three hour long picnic, and I amused myself by parking in the furthest corner of the school property and watching a movie on my laptop. On the way home, he said that his friend Rob had been there, and that there wasn’t any more news on his missing mother.

“Did someone ask him about her, or did he bring the subject up?” I asked.

“Rob brought it up. Well, kind of,” Cob stumbled out.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we were all wandering around a bit, and we saw where you were parked,” Cob explained, “which led to a discussion about parents, and the phrase ‘totally epic mom” was used. That’s when…”

“Wait, what?”

“I, um, well, called you a totally epic mom,” he squirmed in his charmingly deliberate way. I looked at him and grinned. He stared back and made a rude face. We went back and forth like this until, finally, he caved in first. “Whaaat?”

“Hang on, as parents we don’t get many moments like this. Clarify for me, please – what does ‘epic’ mean, exactly, in this context?”

My lanky, barely-shaving sixteen year old son grinned the grin that makes my heart squeeze, and started chuckling his father’s chuckle. “‘Epic’ means really great,” he said impishly, then laughed at the look I exaggerated for his benefit. “Oh, c’mon. I’ve told you before that all my friends think that you and Dad are the coolest parents. You don’t have nearly as many stupid and weird hang-ups as other parents do.”

I was tempted to ask what weird hang-ups we did possess, but I’m not entirely stupid.

“Epic, huh?” I said with the hugest grin on my face.

“Yeah, yeah…” he muttered, starting to get embarrassed.

“I suppose I shouldn’t push my luck and make you regret telling me this, huh?”

“Nope.”

What an amazing gift to receive from my teenage son. Especially, I have to confess, since his older brother has… um… how shall I say this… well he’s at the other end of the behavioral spectrum, often choosing to deliberately withhold his thoughts and words from me, and then knowingly hurt me with them when he doesn’t.

After savoring the moment for a minute, I dragged myself back to the point of origin. “How did all that tie in with Rob and his mom?”

“I basically said that you were the best mother anyone could have, and he said, ‘No, my mom was.’ He said ‘was’. It was really sad.”

My heart bounced back and forth like a pinball – feeling huge joy at how blessed I am with my family, and huge sadness that not everyone has the same. I felt selfish and guilty about it for a while, but I finally let it land and stay on joy as I drove home having more of a wonderful conversation with my son.