Well last week was a bit of a pain in the derrière: first our van disappears, again and then my mom suffers an attack of a medical condition at work. She’s a lot better now but I think what was a bit eerie about my mom’s painful incident was that that morning I had had a nightmare that something had happened to my mom, and my dad was saying the usual Yoruba (Yoruba being the language of the part of Nigeria my family is from) reaction to a stressful/scary situation and that’s how I woke up, heart pounding. To receive a call from my brother a few hours later, informing me that he had heard my mom had to be taken to see a doctor during her shift, but he had no idea where she was taken or what happened, was unnerving to say the least but I tracked her down.

She’s feeling a lot better and as always happens after something like this, the older people in the family (my parents, my sister and I) are drawn a bit closer. I made some vows that I’d spend more time with my mom (well, both parents, really) and less time on my computer.

I did make good on my vow this weekend though…but the proof is in the follow through, which historically isn’t my strength.

As much as I love my parents, I find myself repressing a sigh at times during conversations with them. I can tell that my mom especially really enjoys talking to me because her and I don’t have the same turbulent relationship as my sister and her (make no mistake: my sister and her are super close, which is why they have these clashes) so we have actual conversations that rarely descend into arguments. I’m sad to admit I’m not a good listener when it comes to family, and especially when my mom’s telling me something I’ve heard before. But I don’t want to look back on my impatience with regret that the time that could have been spent with people I claim to love was instead spent with my hands flying over a computer keyboard.

My mom does want to get more computer literate so perhaps I could accomplish two goals in one, where not severing my bond to my computer would be one of those goals.

Filed under: Family by jummy