What a Long Weekend in Dublin With My Grown Son Taught Me About Letting Go

"I've never had a sense of direction. In a family where everyone knows where they're going, I'm the one who gets lost. When my son Charlie was small, he would listen as I outlined the day's itinerary-grocery store, library, post office-then interrupt. "Mama," he'd say, "I have a better way." And he did. He was five, and already knew where he was going."

"Our junior suite overlooked the 18th-century-style garden, where a life-sized statue of James Joyce doubles as a sundial. Inside, sixteen-foot ceilings and cream-and-red toile upholstery spoke of Georgian restraint. As I unpacked, Charlie stretched his lanky body across one of the overstuffed sofas, absorbed in the pages of Dune. "This is a place I could spend time in," he said, lounging. "It doesn't feel like a hotel-it feels like a living room.""

"That evening, we headed north across the Liffey for dinner at L. Mulligan Grocer, splitting confit duck wings over local Irish beers. When we returned to the hotel, after a stroll along the river, the staff had slipped a bookmark into Charlie's paperback, neatly bundled his charging cords, turned down the beds, and placed slippers beside them."

A parent who lacks a natural sense of direction travels with adult son Charlie to Dublin for a long weekend, marking their first trip together since his adulthood. Charlie arrives light, waits in the elegant Merrion hotel lobby, and relaxes reading Dune in a junior suite that overlooks an 18th-century-style garden. They cross the Liffey for dinner at L. Mulligan Grocer and stroll the river. Attentive hotel staff prepare the room discreetly, placing a bookmark in Charlie's paperback, bundling cords, and setting out slippers, creating comfort without intrusion.

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