Being Called Upon by Something Other than Our Cellphones, on Filial Relations

Not allowing technologies to get between you and your shared time with the family here, translated…

On the weekends, I’d gone home with my two younger sisters, we’d sat around the living room, and, the nephews were also there, which was very hard to come by, it’s just, that the younger generations are taken by their cell phones, on the surface, they seemed to be interacting with everybody quite well, but, they’d often drifted their gazes toward their cell phones.

Later on, my second youngest sister picked up her cell, said she wanted to share the photos of their family outings together, my third youngest immediately pulled out her iPad too, said that she needed to update something on her Facebook pages, I too, pulled out my cell phone, to check on my LINE messages.

And so, the loud noises in the house from a few seconds ago became all of a sudden, quieted, everybody sat in the living room, with a machine in hand, even my mother drifted her gazes back to those reruns of old soaps too.

After I’d read my messages, I’d lifted up my head, and was shocked to see what was happening, and realized, how we, older women couldn’t defeat the siren-like calls of our cell phones, we too, were all, kidnapped by our cell phones, just as the younger generations were.

At this time, the nurse’s aide had brought a plate of watermelon on, I’d picked up a piece, fed it to my mother, and hollered out to everybody to come and get some, at this time, it’s like, everybody’s awake all of a sudden, said goodbye to their friend from the distance, gotten out of the virtual reality, and returned, back to the family gathering that’s before them.

Mom saw how her grandkids are all around her, not distracted, she showed that expression of ecstasy, I’d picked up my cell again, wanted to capture the moment. I’d said to mom loudly, “Is the watermelon sweet?” my nephews fought my mother for the answers, as they’d all screamed out, “SURE IS!”, the moment I’d clicked the shutters, from everybody’s smiles, I know, that everybody’s heart was also, sweet then.

And so, this just shows, how easily we can all become too sidetracked by the unimportant matters, to the point that we FAIL to realize what we should put as our first and topmost priorities is right there, close to us, and gladly, this family managed to get the moment back again.