Close family members can be dangerous to my mental health and emotional peace. This has nothing to do with love, and I love my family members as well as I can, being a human male. Given the restrictions that Covid has required, and since my wife and I are in the older target group, we observe limits on people visiting our home. Cumbersome, irritating, and unnatural, we have been promised that the limits give us a chance to live longer than if we contract Covid.

Our eldest’s surprise Mothers Day visit, which I knew nothing about and did not notice since it took place outside, resulted in a beautiful bouquet of flowers, hand-delivered by the most senior, direct to his Mother. Nice.

However, upon returning to our home, the flower recipient began a diatribe about how I was not taking care of my health, how I needed to make appointments with doctors, and how I needed to do this immediately. Several strong statements. I was caught by surprise, had not yet had breakfast, and I did not take it well. I performed my storming out of the room trick and began to cool down until some semblance of peace was restored.

It was then that I was told about the visit, and then that I was told that our eldest was worried about me and questioned the flower recipient about what I was doing about my health. A mixed metaphor of a visit, in my humble opinion, since I am not a Mother.

I crafted a private message to all my children, sent shortly before this post, asking my children to not provide ammunition of any kind that leads to diatribes on holidays, or any other days. I wish myself luck in getting a high positive response rate on the request.

Happy Mothers’ Day 🙂