Mum loves me dearly. For mum, I will always be her kind, brave, honest, little girl but something happened one morning and the taste of regret filled my hasty lips. She asked me a minor question inquiring about a conversation I had with a friend over phone and I responded with great irritation, even agitation. I overreacted. I thought she was being nosy about my personal affairs and I ended up shouting at her.
My dad says that the skirmishes between mum and I are totally unnecessary and avoidable. Avoidable especially if I, for one, keep my mouth shut. Earlier the frequency of our fights was greater. With age and maturity, I grew calmer and mellower but on August 1, I lost it because she had asked me about the phone call the previous night too but morning found me angry and emotionally violent. In another moment, we had had a heated exchange and she was gone to the bathroom while I stood alone-sullen, regretful and helpless.
My love later told me that she was my mum and greater than all my close friends put together and she could have just been curious about my friend’s call so I was an idiot for exploding at a most loving and tender mum like that. “Your friends are your friends, they can’t be your mum,” he said.
Invariably, I understood then why he is so loved by his family and those around him. It’s because of his prized and cherished values, his compassion towards those weaker than himself and also his respect for his own mother and mine. I admit I am guilty of protecting so-called friends who want to use me and I am now ashamed of treating mum like she was less important than my friends. If anything, she was the one who has stood by me through all of life’s vicissitudes. I mean when my parents are impatient with each other, they try to be gentle because often the situation warrants nothing but calm answers and rational explanations.
The day began with tempers flaring between mum and myself. She didn’t even allow me to help her with the dishes because she was extremely hurt and angry. I apologized to her half-heartedly and she didn’t accept my apology. I was flustered by then.
I decided it was time I started accepting responsibility for my feelings and actions. Especially while dealing with family. This war of words had spoilt the otherwise beautiful early morning ambience.
Good thing that “he” (I will be referring to this wise fairy of my partner as “he” hereon) gave me a showdown for my disrespectful behavior towards mum. She deserved better, much better. She deserved a huge ribboned gift, a kiss and many “thank you’s” for letting her children be children in her eyes but I was not going to sit there and ruminate for long. When she had cooled down, I served her a cup of hot tea, explained about the phone call and apologized.
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| Mum nourishing plants and people with love. |
Meditations
A word of advice to children: At times, a parent can be tough on you. The other side of love is discipline. An ancient adage goes, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” While we cannot take the rod in literal terms today except in extreme cases, we must let our children know that if they err, it is going to harm themselves most of all. Love and discipline must be the foundational tenets in raising a child. A child who can respect his parents and at their advice, improve his ways will definitely reap the fruit of the first of the Ten Commandments which states: “Honor your parents and you shall live long on the earth.”
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