My Indian Mother-in-Law

Imil goes into a panic if my husband does not answer his cellphone immediately when she calls him.  Every. Single. Time.

Most recently, she called when we took our son to swim class this past Saturday.  The class is at 9AM and she called at 9:30AM, which is 8:30AM Imil time.  She always calls early.  I guess she wants to make sure we have not died overnight before she goes about her day.  Anyway, we were in class and then we stopped by the playground before heading home.  Once we got home, we fed our son a snack and milk and then put him down for his afternoon nap.    As he often does on weekends, my husband napped along with our son.  I recount all of this to show that he had yet to call Imil back and it was already 11:30AM.  As soon as our son awoke, we fed him lunch and then hurriedly ran out the door to catch the train to Long Island where we were meeting friends for a barbeque.  It was now 2:00 at the train station and my husband noticed that Imil just called again about 4 1/2 hours after her previous call.  He immediately called back but she did not answer.  It was 2:40Pm before we got reception on the phone and my husband was able to reach Imil.  Five hours had passed since her first phone call!  She was now in a state of complete panic and had assumed something terrible had happened to us.  She was upset that he had not called sooner.

When we got home, I noticed that she had called our home phone and had called my cellphone.  When I spoke to mother the next day, I learned that Imil had called my parents to find out if they had heard from us.  She told them that my husband had not answered his phone and that something must be wrong.  My parents told her that they had not heard from us.   Then, they calmly went about their day without assuming the worst.

Now, I understand that mothers worry.  I certainly do.  But, it seems unreasonable to start planning a memorial service because your son and family have not called back within five hours.  Not to self to not have a breakdown if my son doesn’t call me back within a few hours, or a day, or even a couple of days.  And even if I am worried, I now know to remain calm so that my children do not think I am crazy.

When Imil visited in January, I finally asked her how long she stayed at home with my husband after he was born.  Her answer was three years.   Three years!  How is that possible?  She has no memories at all of him as a baby.  We always assumed that she had been working full-time and that was the reason she didn’t remember his first words or when he started to crawl or when he started to walk or what he ate as a baby.  Yet, somehow she was dedicated to him for three years with nothing to do but take care of him and has retained no memory of that time.

Going back even farther, she also has no memory of birth.   She woke up and a nurse told her “It’s a boy!”  We think she must’ve been given an amnesiac drug, but she claims no one told her that they were giving anything to her.

Yes, I know it was a long time ago, so give her a break.  And I would, except…

She even forgets stories she’s told me in the last year.  For example, months ago she told me that my husband was a terrible napper as a baby.  She remembers when she would go pick him up at daycare and he would be sitting straight up while all of the other kids were sleeping because he knew that she would be coming to pick me up.  When we visited her in April, she changed her mind and said my husband had no problems with his sleep.  When I reminded her of the napping story, she laughed and said “that’s right.”  Which one is it, Imil?

I suppose I should be thankful that I’ve been keeping track of my son’s development…and that I have a memory.