I was waiting for my son to come online last night when the phone rang. By the time I picked it up, it was silent again, but the display panel showed the call had come from "outside the area". I called my wife in Calcutta (Kolkata) thinking it must have been her. But, no, she said she hadn’t called: our son must have called me from his college in America.
Before I could ask her why he should call when we could chat online, she burbled happily he had just called her a few minutes earlier to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. And the phone in my Singapore apartment started ringing again. "He must be calling you again," she told me. But trying to put her on hold and take his call, I fumbled as usual. And ended up cutting her off without taking his call.
So I called him myself and heard from his own lips what my wife had been trying to tell me. He had received an email from Skype saying he could make free calls on Mother’s Day. When he saw that email after getting up from bed — it was Sunday morning for him — he had called his mum. And then he had tried calling daddy as well. But butterfingers me (my words, not his) couldn’t take his call. He wasn’t surprised by my ineptitude. Both he and I are surprised how a chip off this old block ended up studying physics and maths and computer science and all that hard stuff. But the boy likes it. I am impressed.
What more can I say except "Thank you, son. I’m a lucky guy to get a call from my boy on Mother’s Day."
I can guess why he called though he wouldn’t say so himself. As I told my wife when I called her again after speaking to him, I sometimes tease him that he has a softer spot for his mum than for me. His phone call to me was, of course, a ringing denial of any such discrimination. Thank you, my boy. Mum and I are both convinced we have a wonderful son.
Related posts:
