Mother's Love

One of staff members is somewhat peculiar, and we always wondered what made him so. When he was proceeding on long leave, we asked him to make adequate arrangement for continuation of his work. He understood exactly how much, and did exactly one third of that. I never anticipated this, but then he is original at times. The concerned clerk rang him up. His old, crippled mother picked up the phone and soundly scolded the clerk for troubling her son who was on leave and anyway out of town. So I had to ring her up to sort out the trouble. I told her I was the head of the department and asked her to tell me how to communicate with her son. “He is out of town” she said. “When will he return?” I asked. “ Um.. I don’t know” she said. That was surprising. He was the only son, still single at a pre-retirement age, so attached to the mother that he wouldn’t go anywhere without her. He had taken her along to stay with him during his residency of three years before passing M.D., and even abroad on a fellowship because there would be no one to look after her. “Where has he gone?” I asked. “I don’t know that” she shouted. “Please do not shout” I said, “I cannot hear you if you shout”. “I have to shout because there is much disturbance here” she said immediately. I could hear no disturbance. Her pat answer reminded me of the pat and schoolboy-like answers her son gave us as explanation for his lapses. “I cannot believe he would go away like this without anyone to look after you” I said. “Oh, a servant comes at night” she sounded like she was smiling when she said this. “Please tell him to contact me urgently” I said “he has gone on leave without doing what he should have done.” “You should have asked him about it before he went on leave” she retorted loudly. “Please don’t shout” I said. “YOU are shouting” she retorted. She reminded me of whatever this must have reminded you too. “He must be aware of the service rules” I said “he has to leave his whereabouts before going on leave’ so that we can contact him if needed”. “He is on leave and you trouble him” she shouted. She used to say the same thing when resident doctors rang him up at night to ask advice on the management of his patients, and would scold them too. “Others merrily take long leave of three months at a time.” So the mother’s boy had been telling stories to mama all right. “You go take action on him. We are fed up with all this. He will resign.” “Please let him” I said as I hung up the phone. Then we would at least get someone who would do his work properly rather than to extract a vengeance on everyone else. I could also see what a mother’s love had done for her son and was still doing it at an age when he himself would have been a grandfather had he married his sweetheart of many years but did or could not.