I'm not exactly sure when it started, but probably a couple of years before I moved back in with mom, she started turning back the bed covers before I went to bed each night when I would visit. My visits would usually be for several days at a time, as I was helping out more and more with caregiving for my dad, and every single night, she'd give my bed the mom version of a hotel's turndown service.
I certainly had no issues with it; it was one of many kind gestures mom would exhibit during the course of any given day. But one night, I asked her why she did it, given she had so many responsibilities on her plate in caring for dad. She told me it was the least she could do for me, considering the increased amount of time I was spending at their house the last two years of my dad's life.
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I moved back in with my mom in April of 2022, which was when my dad's health sharply declined to the point he had to go back to stay at a physical rehab/nursing facility for what ended up being the last weeks of his life. Around this time, was when I started to return the favor by turning her bed covers back as well.
She then asked me the same question that I asked of her, and I gave her a similar answer, that it was the least I could do considering not only everything she did for my dad, but because of the health issues she was dealing with, which we found out several months later stemmed from colon cancer.
I ended up adding a little something extra to my turndown service for mom. Once she went to bed, I'd come back in after she got settled in and would make sure she was tucked in, with the blankets encasing her like a burrito. I'd brush her silver hair back off her face, kiss her on the forehead, say "good night, love you," then I'd go to bed.
Eventually, I gave the action a name: The "purrito." It's something I saw on one of the kitty cat foster accounts I followed on Instagram, where they'd take a kitten, roll it into a blanket, and would call it a purrito. Since mom and I were both cat fans, the nickname was a hit.
Purrito? 🤔🤔🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/NbCqhmHPZJ
— NotIvanoFarsky⚪⚫⚪ (@slovakianfella) January 29, 2026
Any night since then, when I've been late coming into the room to give her her "purrito," I've gotten reminders. "Don't forget about my purrito," she'll gently call out as I'm getting ready for bed myself. Unless I'm just flat out exhausted and fall asleep early, the purrito happens every night.
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One purrito memory I'll always treasure came in November of 2022. It was the day Mom was in the hospital to have surgery to remove the cancerous tumor they found during her colonoscopy less than a month prior. They were still under COVID protocols at that time, so I was limited in where I could be with her pre and post surgery. I was probably more nervous than she was. She was 79 at the time, after all, and was going in for surgery and, of course, had to be put under anesthesia, which was one of the scarier parts for her and me.
She wasn't in surgery for six hours, but that's about how long I had to be away from her that day while they did pre-surgery prep, the actual surgery, and then the post-surgery monitoring. It was agonizing to have to wait to get to see her, especially when everyone else in the surgery waiting room was getting their call backs to see their loved ones.
But around 5 pm or so that afternoon, I finally got my call back. They had to wheel her into a hallway for me to see her, because I couldn't go back into the actual post-surgery area. She was still half out of it when I finally saw her, and the nurse who came with her told me she was slowly waking up.
I went and took her hand, so relieved to see her, and prayed she'd be looking at me and not the wall when she first came to. When she did open her eyes, they were glazed over but a brilliant hazel green, looking directly at me. A weak smile began to form.
And the first words out of her mouth were, "I want my purrito."
The nurse looked confused, and I quickly explained through tears what that meant, and she loved the story. I then asked if it was okay to adjust mom's covers a bit so she'd feel the "purrito effect." The grinning nurse told me that was fine, and so I tucked Mom in a little more with the hospital blankets, and we chatted for a few more minutes before she had to be wheeled back.
This is one of the reasons why the story of Savannah Guthrie's 84-year-old missing mother, Nancy, has really gotten to me.
We all have mothers we love and adore, and to think about an elderly, vulnerable loved one being kidnapped and being put through God knows what breaks our hearts in two.
But when Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said he believed she had been snatched out of her bed while she was sleeping in the middle of the night, all I could think about was my mom and the purritos I give her each night in bed when I'm making sure she's warm, safe, and tucked in for a good night's sleep. And my heart just went out to the Guthrie family, praying for the miracle of their beloved mother and grandmother to be returned home safe.
If you can't tuck your mom and dad in bed at night, make sure to give them a call to say, "I love you." Because you never know when that chance is going to get taken away from you, so it's best to let them know - and often - while you still can.
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