My son called me out of the blue the other day to ask me a question.
The question is completely unimportant to the point of this post, mostly because I forgot what it was before we even hung up. I only remember two things. I could not give him an answer, and I thought his sister could, so I told him to ask her. (I have no idea if he followed through with that.)
What is important was the rest of our conversation.
Normally when he calls me we talk for a while. The subjects vary but I generally get an update on how he is doing and what he’s been up to, not only at work but outside of work. We can also ramble into memories from his growing up, though occasionally we will also talk about things from my growing up years.
Our conversations, like those with Bonnie, tend to be long and a bit rambling but enjoyable. Most importantly, not short.
This one ended, in my opinion, rather abruptly.
If you know me at all, you know I deal with the financial matters in my household. This means I regularly spend time updating checkbooks and balancing statements, not to mention paying bills. And yes, it is multiple accounts.
My husband and I each have our own personal checking and savings accounts, plus we have a household checking and savings account. When my children were minors I also kept on top of all their checking and savings accounts.
There was a time when it literally took me several days to deal with our finances at the beginning of the month partly because of the sheer volume of accounts I was attempting to keep balanced.
The volume has significantly decreased since my children are all adults and I expect them to be able to keep their financial records up to date and balanced. I’m not completely sure if they are all handling that effectively but I refuse to adult for them.
Well, except for my youngest. He refuses to accept that he is old enough to handle setting doctors appointments and demands I still deal with those for him.
We have gone rounds about this. He actually insisted I did not stop doing this for his siblings when they turned 18. His siblings told him point blank, nope, she totally did.
Since he still demands I be in on such conversations with him, I am assuming this has more to do with his autistic traits than his actual ability to adult. I don’t think he even realizes that he has set his own appointments without any help from me.
Anyway, back to the recent phone call from his brother.
At the moment he called it was edging toward dinner time on the very last day of the month. I was also smack dab in the middle of balancing my checkbook. The one account that has the most activity each month because my daughter and I use it to keep our household supplied with necessities. That’s at least 2 different stores most weekends, plus gas and whatever I order online because we can’t find those products locally. Most of those products are because my daughter has such a long list of allergies and she has to eat.
As you can probably imagine, checking off each item that has cleared the statement takes a great deal of time and attention.
I did not have the bandwidth to focus on a conversation with him while I was I making sure there were no discrepancies. For this reason, after he asked his question and before we moved on to additional chitchat, I told him I did not have time to talk for the very reason that I was in the middle of balancing a bank statement.
Folks, my wonderful son immediately apologized. He told me he was sorry, but he hadn’t realized until that very moment that this week, being the first week of the month, meant I would be busy.
Anyway, we quickly said our goodbyes and hung up. Probably the shortest conversation I’ve ever had with him.
Not long after that I had a conversation with Bonnie in which she pointed out that it was my turn to post and that it had to be up on the second. She then got to her point that our baby brother’s birthday is the third.
We then talked about our memories of that day, with her telling me I should write about that. But I already have, starting with my post September 2017 “Of Holidays and Other Memories”. And yes, I have never forgotten that morning and how Dad woke me up.
Remembering that is easy. Realizing just how old my brothers are now is not.
Anyway, happy birthday, Dan.
Smile. Make the day a brighter day.
