Are your boys home for the weekend? 

It's the question my mother asks me every week. No, I tell her. I didn't expect them to be. They're busy with their own lives.

She takes me by surprise each and every time she asks me this question because it never occurs to me that my sons (20 and 23, in school and grad school) would come home on the weekend. Frankly, I wouldn't want them to. I like that they're quite happy with their lives, busy and occupied. I would worry if they choose to drive all the way home on weekends. I like the quiet of my weekends, too. Although I'm not now working, I still have plenty to take up my weekends.

Yet this question always takes me by surprise. And soon after I hang up, surprise. My older son calls, asking if we're busy on Sunday (we are, but I don't tell him this, in fact cancelling in my mind two events on Sunday). He has the day off - a rarity in grad school - and would like to visit. We make plans to get in a round of disc golf after I return from church. What a surprise! Can't wait!