A Parent's Love

My parents just came back from their Umrah on Friday. For those who have no idea what Umrah is, well it’s like a mini-pilgrimage… not as big as going for the Hajj, but still requires you to be in Mekah. I don’t claim to be an expert on this topic, so you’ll have to do some googling if you want to learn more. (Notice how ‘to google’ is now a verb?)

Anyway, I was talking to my mom, and she was telling me about her experiences there… she said that she would be ok when saying a little prayer for everybody else, but when she got to me, she would immediately start crying…

My sisters obviously could resist the opportunity with one saying “that’s because he’s got a lot of sins!” and another followed up with “it’s a good thing you only cried instead of getting lightning and thunder!”… heck, even I couldn’t resist and took a shot at myself with “no earthquakes when you said the prayer?”

What’s my point here? Oh yeah… A parent’s love is something which is unwavering even if you’ve been an awful child your whole life… (hold on there… don’t make any crazy conclusions… I wasn’t an awful child my WHOLE life… it’s just a short… errr… phase….)

I feel like I have to explain the whole situation about how I came to be in this world… you see, my parents had two girls before they had me… of course they loved my sisters, but what they really wanted was a boy to ‘complete the collection’… that, and of course a son carries the family line, blah blah blah… all the traditional views on why having a son.

After 12 years, they finally get me… their newest bundle of joy… their hope for carrying on the family line… the future ‘man of the house’… and for obvious reasons, I seem to get special treatment… I wouldn’t really say I’m the favourite (though my sisters all say that). But I’ve got a lot of clout with my parents.

Now, as I’ve said earlier, I haven’t really been a great son. I’ve always been the most ‘wild’ one, though one of my sisters does give me a run for my money (I won’t say which sister since all of them, and their children, read this blog. You know who you are!)

But being ‘naughty’ isn’t really the worse part… it’s the ‘not spending time with my parents’ part. I am the worse at calling my parents to see how they are doing. They are both a quick drive away, but I just don’t see them often enough. This started a long time ago when I went off to university… I just wouldn’t call home and wouldn’t go home often (unless it’s to do my laundry). It got to a point where my dad bought me a car so I can stay at home and drive to class every day (you see, that’s where I get the weird way of ‘punishing’ my son… “Son, you’ve been bad, so here’s a gift! Now behave!”). The ‘habit’ has continued until now…

I can’t come up with an excuse for my behavior… even a bad one. There’s no logical reason for treating my parents the way I do… except the fact that I’m an ass…

So here’s my ‘First Quarter Resolution’… I’m going to spend more time with my parents… I’m going to take time off in a day and give them a phone call… after all, they gave 12 years of their lives praying to get me, and almost 32 years after that praying that I would be a success in my life even when I've been such an ass… what’s a couple of minutes from my so-called busy life to ask them how they are doing.

I know that karma is a bitch and there will probably be a time in my son’s life when he’s going to stop running up to me, hug and kiss me and start to ignore me… he’ll go through the whole ‘not calling’ and ‘not coming home’ phase… and at that time I’ll realize how bad I was to my parents… but I don’t want to reach that stage before I have regrets and do something about it… I already have regrets now, and I want to try to make up for it, while there’s still time (those who have lost their parents know what I’m talking about).

On a lighter note, I do have a younger sister who was born slightly less than 2 years after me. I have a theory that she was unplanned (I’ll avoid using the word ‘mistake’), but nobody would agree with me… do you?