Sunday, June 21, 2009

Father's Day 2009

My son is just a month shy of turning 21 years old, yet he has the maturity of a much older grown man. For some odd reason he found it to be his responsibility to call me and remind me to call and wish my father a Happy Father's Day....ME, the one who has to remind everyone else in my family to make the appropriate occasion phone calls.

I laughed at him and asked him if he thought I was getting too old to remember to make family occasion phone calls. He laughed and said "No, but I talked to pawpaw the other day and he asked me if you were o.k. He said he hadn't heard from you in awhile."

It is true that we probably have not spoke in a few weeks. Yes, I had been meaning to call my father for the past week, yet somehow I always think about it at an odd hour or get sidetracked from the task by my daily duties.

This got me to thinking about the phone call thing. WHY is it that some parents think the children are always suppose to do the calling?????? If my dad was truly concerned about my well being he would have picked up the phone and called me. To be fair, my dad does call me on occasion and is always there for me if I need anything.

After all, I have absolutely no qualms about calling my son...nor does he of calling me. If I don't hear from him for a couple of days, I am dialing his # to check on him and make sure everything is o.k. Being the mother of a grown son I never go longer than a week without "checking in".

I do know of one particular set of parents who NEVER call their son to check on him. I have witnessed this first hand. Granted their son is grown and has a family of his own, but that doesn't make him long any less for his parents love and concern.

The son use to call them on occasion to "check in", but soon figured out that they were too self-absorbed in their own life to even think about asking him questions like...How is the job? How is life? How is the family? Are you o.k? Do you need anything? None of these questions are ever asked of him. Maybe they are so self-absorbed that they don't even realize they are being neglectful parents of their extraordinary grown son....

The poor son now does not care. He does not care if he ever talks to them anymore. He has been hurt, wounded over and over again by their ignorance. He does not care anymore if they ever call...nor will he probably ever call them again.

Being a mother to a son, I have no idea how this sort of thing can even begin to happen. I sometimes wonder if this son died and no one ever called his parents to let them know of his passing, how long it would take before they ever found out??

They never call him to "check in" so I can only guess that it would be many, many moons......so sad. So sad for the son, so sad for parents.

Anyway, for our family's Father's Day celebration we had a leisurely morning and then went and ate at the Cafe 290. One of the best eatin' places in Manor.

After our lunch we went back home. Toby had to be at work at 4:00p.m so we just hung around the house doing nothing but being together. I hope he had as nice of a day being with us as we did him....I think he probably did. :-)

5 comments:

  1. Poor son! I feel very sad for him. I will always keep this post in mind as my children get older. But will never understand why some people think the phone only works one way!!

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  2. My mothere would have said in response to hearing the story you just told: "His mother didn't have any children that lived." Ellen and I have just the one daughter who lives in the next town over. I didn't hear from her yesterday, but as I drove by where she works this morning, I did "our honk" -- then I called and fussed at her for not at least saying happy F-Day yesterday. She admitted that she was so tied up with her boyfriend's family, that she forgot, but is stopping by today after work. We each talk with her separately several times a week, she comments on my blog pictures, rags on me via Facebook, drops by the house for a margarita at least once a week -- usaually on her way home from a stressful day at work. She's a good one, for sure. Ture Texan, born right there in Austin.

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  3. ha ha, then I am your son's carbon copy. I am 20, and I do the same things. ha ha.

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  4. The daughter misses contact with the parents and wishes they had more interest in their granddaughter. But what can you do but live your life and let them live theirs. someday they will realize their shortsightedness.

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