Xena still a moment to cherish

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

I'm surprised she still visits. She said she would. She said, ``When I get my license, I'll be able to drive to your house anytime, Beverly.'' But she was 11, then. And 12. And 13.

``I'll never leave you, Mama,'' I said when I was small. And then I did. It happens.

Xena, the cousin from New York who spent so much of her childhood with me playing Spit, walking, talking and planning her adult life, has had her license for two summers now. And she has visited, just as she promised. She's called and said, ``I miss you. Can I come?'' And then driven two-and-a-half hours, away from her family and her boyfriend and her work and her life, to spend time with me.

And I am continually amazed.

When she was little, she always cried when it was time to leave. Her sisters and brother would be waving and smiling in the back seat of their mother’s car, but there Xena would be, in the front seat, with tears in her eyes. She counted the weeks between visits.

At home she shared a room, did chores and got up early to go to school. Here she was Queen for the Day, every day. Of course, she wanted to stay. ``Want grilled cheese, Xena?'' ``Let's go to the Dairy Queen.'' Here she stayed up late and slept late and had chocolate chip pancakes every morning. Here there was always a party: Thanksgiving, Christmas, February vacation, Easter. And, of course, summer, weeks and weeks of it.

Xena is now 18 and she doesn't have to leave home for a party. There are parties going on every day in her world. Last month she went to Lake Powell on a houseboat for a week with her boyfriend and his family. Next month she's going to Martha's Vineyard. She's working. She's planning her senior year. She's investigating colleges. She doesn't have to come to my house anymore to stay up late or to get a Dairy Queen. All the things she needs and most of what she wants, she has right where she is.

And yet she still visits me.

She stayed for three days this time, my grownup Xena, tall and beautiful and driving her own car, which she bought and paid for, her little-girl dream a reality now. ``When I get my license I'll be able to visit you anytime.''

The morning of the second day, her friends called. Come home, they said. We have tickets to a concert tonight. Everyone was going. Xena never asked, ``What do you think?'' She said no and we played Spit.

``She knows the secret to the game,'' her sister Tabitha told me years ago when Xena was 9 and whipping me.

``Tell me the secret,'' I begged. ``Tell or I'll never make you chocolate chip pancakes again.''

She never told. Year after year, no matter how I threatened and bribed, she refused. And Xena kept beating me.

This year I won three games straight. ``You know the secret now,'' she said matter of factly.

And suddenly I knew it just like that. The secret is not looking around. The secret is concentrating not on Xena's cards and what she MIGHT do but on my own cards and on what I CAN do.

It's that simple, I said. And Xena nodded, then beat me nine in a row.

Xena lives her life the way she plays cards. When she's here, she's here. Never mind a concert somewhere else. Never mind tomorrow.

I always wondered at her ability to remember details: what someone wore five summers ago, whole conversations, who went where and when. Now I know the secret to this, too.

She left Wednesday. She smiled and waved and I smiled, too. I tried to be like Xena, to stay in the moment, grateful that she had visited.

But I found myself doing what I always do, thinking ahead and looking forward to when she returns.