Dreaded Middle-of-the-Night Phone Call

Every parent dreads the middle-of-the-night phone call.
I’ve gotten one of those calls. It was over a decade ago; daughter Tiffany had been in a wreck and wasn’t expected to survive. (She did, but that’s a whole story by itself.)
Parents fear those calls with good reason, and once a parent receives one, the dread increases. I got to the point that any ringing phone which roused me from sleep caused concern.
Several years after my daughter’s wreck, there was a phone call around 3:30 in the morning. This time it was my son in college. It was his voice on the phone, so I knew this couldn’t be all bad.
After I answered, he said, “Mom, this is Tree.” (He always tells me his name when he calls, although I’ve never figured out why. He’s my only son, so when a male voice says “Mom” – well, that’s pretty much a clue as to who is on the other end of the line.)
Once he identified himself, he very matter-of-factly asked if I had Andy’s phone number. Sure. I calmly told him I had that number somewhere and would get it for him, which I did. I returned to the phone, shared the phone number with him and he thanked me. He was so casual; he acted like this just as well be the middle of the day.
Finally, with curiosity getting the best of me, I asked, “Tree, do you know what time it is?” He said he thought maybe it was about 3 in the morning. Yes, I agreed, it was indeed about that time, which still didn’t seem to faze him one bit.
Then I had another question: “Tree, didn’t you have Andy’s phone number?”
“Oh, yeah,” he answered, “but I didn’t want to turn on the light to get it because I didn’t want to wake up my roommate.”
Well, at least his roommate got some sleep that night.


Copyright 2008 Sherry Martschink