You Talk to Mom’s Forehead
Subtleties of staying in touch with family
My eyesight is failing, so when I talk to my two older boys on weekends on WhatsApp, I take my glasses off and bring the phone closer to my eyes. It’s hard otherwise to take in every detail of their faces on the screen, each in the size of a postmark.
We would talk, and my sons — the eldest a college student and my middle son a graduate student — would say how they’d been, what was new in their lives, and what was old but troubling still. I would listen to their voices and look at the screen, trying to decipher by the micro expressions on their faces what was left unsaid.
My eldest would say that he prefers to work independently on his own projects and be his own boss. He would add that collaborating with others wasn’t worth the hassle, and I would feel guilty for not teaching him to play well with others and feel responsible for his nonconformism. I also have this independent streak.
My middle son would share his feelings about a girl not going on a date with him. I would feel hurt that there could be a girl daring not to reciprocate my precious boy’s feelings. At the same time, I would be secretly relieved because I didn’t like her in the first place.
All this sharing and talking came to an end when my eldest son said to his brother: “Now, you talk to Mom’s forehead while I’m in the bathroom.”
“For all this time, why didn’t you tell me that you don’t see me?” I said.
“We did at the beginning,” my middle son explained,” remember, I told you to raise your phone, and you said it’s more comfortable this way?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t listen to you,” I said.
“Don’t worry, Mom. You can hold your phone however you like,” my eldest chimed in.
“And why is that?” I asked a bit touchy-feely about my sons not interested in looking at my face.
“As long as you’re comfortable, it's fine by us,” my middle son said, melting my heart into a puddle.
Since that exchange, I’ve been trying to control myself and hold the phone at the appropriate angle for my boys to see, if not my whole face, then at least my eyes.
It made me think, why are my sons kinder to me than I am to my own mother? Am I that person who communicates with others on her own terms?
The truth be told, the relationship between my mother and me is complicated. Recently she told me that any parent would love to have a wonderful daughter, like me. She paused for my response. I didn’t return her words in kind, unable to forget what she had said to me many years ago. It was when I felt most vulnerable and needed support. I asked my mother, who came to visit unexpectedly, why hadn’t she returned my calls and answered my letters for 8 months. “I don’t need anything from you,” she said.
Now my mother is old and needs me. She calls me at night, forgetting the time difference. She talks to me for hours, asking how my boys are. She calls when she needs a mood booster. She drinks the good news like an elixir and refuses to listen to troubles. She takes credit for every good thing that happens to me, and every mishap is my own fault. I talk to her, listen, and comfort her, but I wouldn’t have enough patience to talk with her forehead for a month.
In my family, I am the middle man, the chokepoint of the funnel of love.
