“We haven’t seen this many children in eons!” 

Mom was in her element. She loves socializing. She loves children. She loves candy. We sat on the porch in rocking chairs, 6 feet away from the small table with a huge bowl of candy on it. As soon as she saw children approaching on the sidewalk (a good 30 feet from where we were sitting), she started gesturing, inviting them to our porch, “Come here! Come here!” 

“How many can I take?” the unicorns, Cruella DeVils, Spidermen, and vampires asked.

“As many as you want, sweetie!” I tried to explain to her that we’d likely get hundreds of children over the course of the evening, so maybe we’d want to limit them to 1 or 2 pieces. “Oh, yes, that’s what I was thinking.” 

The next group of children arrived. “Look at you! Aren’t you just precious! Take as much as you like!” Fists emerged with overflowing handfuls of miniature candy.

It was more important for her to enjoy herself that for us not to run out of candy. Mentally, I started thinking about what else we had in the cupboards. A box or two of granola bars. Some small bags of peanuts. Possibly some hot cocoa packets? If nothing else, I had some one dollar bills we could give out if we ran out of everything else. Do kids use Venmo at Halloween?

The kids would leave and she’d exclaim again, “I don’t know when we’ve seen this many children!” Then she’d laugh and laugh and laugh. 

“We’re having a good day today, aren’t we?” I often say what I want her to believe. 

“I haven’t had this much fun in ages!” Me, too, Mom. Me, too.