Original Story – Part 5 – It’s a matter of trust.

I was at school when my niece called me to inform me about my sister. I got very emotional on the phone. My niece couldn’t understand why I got so upset; after all it was her mother that got hurt. My sister did okay and recovered, but wasn’t about to visit my mother and let her know. It happened late during the week, so I could go in that weekend and be the one to visit my mother. I let her know that my sister wasn’t feeling well, but didn’t disclose the real reason she couldn’t visit.
Eventually everything did work out. My sister could visit and told my mother what had happened. All three of us recovered fully from our injuries and life went on.
My softball team continued playing for another 7 years before we left the league. We of course changed our name again, this time to the Loose Laces. We sometimes made the playoffs, but never got to the championship game.
The most surprising part of all of the breaks came about 6 months later. My family was all together visiting when my mother pulled me aside and told me that she was very angry with me. At that point there was nothing I did to incur this wrath. She told me that she was angry that I had waited so long to tell her about my broken collarbone. I’m not sure if she had been holding this in for 6 months, or it had just dawned on her. She said it was an issue of trust. If I couldn’t tell her about a simple break, what other things was I holding back from her?
My mother passed away in 1998. I think about that incident a lot as my son gets upset with me when I don’t always tell him about things that are going to happen as soon as I know, like getting a flu shot, or going to the doctor. He gets upset and says that he wants to know when the plans are made. I think to myself, he’s going to overly worry about it, why put him through all that anxiety? I also don’t want to lose the trust that I have, like my mother lost her trust in us at that time. I’m never sure what is the correct choice. What will happen when I’m in my mother’s shoes and I’m old, and he’s grown up, what will he do in similar circumstances? I guess that’s one of the responsibilities of parenthood, sometimes there’s never an easy decision. You just hope you make the right one and learn from the wrong ones.