That's What Mimi's Do

Do you ever recall elementary school during the cold and flu season? Sometimes, your best bud was absent, and you were stuck rethinking who you’d eat lunch with for the next week. If you substitute the snot and fever, the ones sick at home under a cozy blanket, resting under the harmony of calmness, were pretty lucky.

In the early 2000s, I caught the flu when Mom and Dad were out of personal days. I remember arriving at Mimi’s before daylight. The aroma of herbal tea and honey floated around the kitchen, and breakfast awaited me on the table. Even though I couldn’t feel worse, It couldn’t get better. 

Mimi sat me down in her back room, covered me in a knitted white blanket, and played The Big Comfy Couch on PBS. I watched the oddly flexible clown do her stretches on the clock rug, but the back of my eyelids were up next. That day was almost two decades ago now, and that blanket has been used many times since. 

In detail, one fall night in my very early twenties, I found myself in Mimi’s driveway. I was sick, but this time, there was no congestion or sniffles—just a lump in my throat, denser than ever before. When the drizzle turned to droplets on my windshield, I knew It was time to go inside. I found an empty kitchen, and the beautiful smells weren’t dancing in the air. I walked back to her bedroom and saw her sleeping soundly. I didn’t want to go home, so I stayed. I made a place in the living room on the big comfy couch, laughed with Chandler Bing on the screen, and started mending my broken heart. The following day, I woke with the white knitted blanket covering me from shoulder to toe. 

It’s 2023 now. When I’m sick, I don’t use my parents’ PTO. I take medication without assistance, I can drive myself to the doctor, and I even learned how to brew tea. However, Mimi is still next door to me, and I can still visit the dancing aromas, lay on the big comfy couch, and let her cover me up. 

That’s what Mimi does.

Mimi making me tea and breakfast during my last cold.

:)