My mother has put on five pounds.
She and my father have been traveling across Europe on and off since this spring, you see. Or rather, they’ve been eating their way through Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and now Italy.
We’re convening in Milan for our annual family trip this year, and my parents are picking us up at the airport. By this point, they’ve been wining and dining every night for the better part of a month straight.
After a short jump to JFK airport and then a longer leg across the ocean, we groggily get our passports stamped and pick up our luggage before stumbling out to the meeting area. I look across the airport and there they are, my father walking swiftly toward us with a smile on his face and my mother not far behind him. They have their arms outstretched in anticipation of a hug before they even reach us.
Mirthful is the best word I can think of to describe how they look. My mother has a twinkle in her eye as she beams over at me, her one and only daughter. She asks about our flight as we walk toward the car to begin our weeklong adventure. She recounts stories about the operas they’ve been to, the sights they’ve seen, and the meals they’ve consumed. She pulls out her phone and shows me the hundreds of photos she’s already taken so far. She’s as lively as ever, and her energy is contagious.
Later, on the drive to the villa, she leans over to me in the backseat and whispers, with a smile on her face, that she’s put on some weight since their travels. “Can you tell?” she asks. “Actually, no,” I respond. And then, “How much?”
Five pounds, she replies.
But they’re five happy pounds.
She laughs. And then without skipping a beat, she moves onto the next topic of conversation: the spaghetti bolognese that she’s already planning on ordering for lunch.
I can’t tell you how much exactly she’s been eating as of late, but I can assure you that calories have been the last thing on her mind. She and my father have been having the time of their lives together. She’s been living life – that’s what she’s been up to.