One or the Other

After waiting for an agonizing week, my father finally called me. (boy! did I get a crash course lesson in patience!!) It was surreal to say the least, I was speaking to a man I haven't spoken to for 13 years. At one point, it felt as though time hadn't passed at all, he babbled on about some things completely insignificant, which I put down to nervousness and a desire on his part to evade any complicated questions; like one in particular; where the hell have you been all my life and why haven't you appeared to have given much of a toss about me? To ease his discomfort, I let him babble on until he seemed to calm a bit and the babbling stopped. In my 15 minutes of fame, he had learned that his only daughter was now, not only married, but had three little kiddies in tow. I know for a fact, that some of our parents find being called Gran or Grandpa for the first time like swallowing their dentures sideways, so the poor old man had to deal with the fact that I had not one, but three mini me's.

I must admit, it was a little less awesome as I had expected. The conversation passed by without a big bang and afterwards I was left gazing at my cell phone, asking it "Is that it?", 13 years later and that was it; no fireworks, no crying, no spectacular rush of emotion. OK. That was it.

Excited nonetheless, I called my mother to give her the good news; well, as it turned out, it wasn't good news. Frankly she was, how can I put it gently? Pissed as hell. I am still completely taken aback by her reaction.

There is an event coming up which would require both of them to be at the same place at the same time and my mother is livid; as I recall the words used to describe me at that moment were; selfish, inconsiderate, unfeeling and self centred, to name but a few. Without being able to go into too much detail about this "event", it is something that would (I ardently believe) benefit the future of my children, which is of course my top priority.

It has been made monumentally clear that her feelings take precedent over my children's well being. Now, being the ever protective mother that I am, I am finding this a little difficult to grasp. Why do I have to choose between my children and my mother, is there a choice? Can there ever be without question a choice between them? Perhaps I am, one or all of the fanciful and glorified names above, but don't ever ask me to choose between anyone on this earth and my kids.

So, the first conversation I have had with my father in years had been dampened slightly, not completely though; I found him, finally, nothing can change that warm fuzzy feeling, hopefully not even the queasy, sick to my stomach feeling that has settled itself just underneath it.