Sunday 3 June 2012

Family Life

Every Saturday morning at 9 AM my mother is sitting by her phone waiting for my call.

At 85 years of age and living a distance from me I can allow her to expect my call - come rain or shine.

From my mum's perspective the only way she knows what goes on in the family is by a phone call updating her on the previous week's activities.  She revels in hearing every detail and it helps her to feel as though she is still involved in our family lives.

In reality she hasn't visited my house for over 15 years as her fear of driving any distance prevents her from driving to me and therefore our only visits are when we make the journey to see her.  Perhaps that is what you come to expect as you grow older.

In some ways I can understand her predicament for already at my age I find myself "left out of the loop" when it comes to the every day lives of our children and grandchildren.  Working full-time (myself and the children) and being a distance apart means that I learn a lot of what goes on by logging on to Facebook.  There seems to be hardly any time for phone calls or Skype and it is a little sad that a social networking site is the main source of information regarding family activities.

My mum always says that she prefers to talk on the phone than an email or text message and I suppose in some ways she is right.  But in these busy days the old poem seems all the more poignant:

"What is this world if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare"

Or to contact one another... and I'm as guilty as the next!

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