Mama and Dad

Another great post on the NY Times Motherlode blog today.

A mother writes about leaving her adult son -- who has autism and a seizure disorder -- for a week's trip to Paris to celebrate her and her husband's 30th wedding anniversary:

At home, I am the all-consumed mother of a disabled child. In Paris, I become an art and history lover. A bon vivant. A flâneur — one who saunters. In Paris, I feel young... We have never left Mickey for a week. He has left us, of course, to go – reluctantly – to a special needs summer program for three weeks. But now he is the one being left. I shudder, thinking how often he asks me, “Do people come back when they die?”