PERSONAL

I Asked My Mom on Facebook What My Blood Type is

She called the FBI, CIA, and the NASA to make sure I’m okay.

I know what you’re thinking. What kind of an idiot doesn’t know his own blood type at the age of 30? Hear me out!

It came up in a casual conversation I was having with a friend, and the answer was on the tip of my tongue. But I couldn’t say it. I haven’t had to use this piece of information in more than ten years, so I totally forgot. I thought I quickly ask my Mom, so I messaged her, but it was pretty late at night, and she was sleeping already.

I went to bed, way too late as usual, and when I woke up, I had like five missed calls from my brother and my dad, and a bunch of anxious messages from my mom.

I immediately assumed that something serious happened to someone I love. Especially now, when every normal thing, a question, a message, or a missed call, can be interpreted in a wrong way. Our subconscious is so paranoid due to the pandemic that when we cough a little, we have to check our forehead, whether we have a temperature or not. Hypochondriacs, such as myself, are having a hard time these past few months.

Once I’ve read my messages in the morning, I replied to everyone and tried to find out what’s wrong. They were asking the same. Only because I asked a simple health-related question, without providing any context, in my mother’s mind, I was already lying in a hospital bed attached to a ventilator having difficulties to breathe.

When Michael Jordan talked about his father’s death in The Last Dance (my review), he said, every situation we experience we have to try to take the negatives and turn them into positives. I’m trying to implement his mentality into my life.

“I started looking at the positive. One of the things he [his dad] always thought me is that you have to take the negative and turn it into positive.” — Michael Jordan in the 7th episode of The Last Dance.

I’m very fortunate to have such parents who care about me so profoundly that they blow something so small out of proportion because they are worried I’m not well. We’ve been living in different countries for many years now (England, Hungary, Austria), but that actually helped us to develop a deeper connection with each other than we ever had before.

It’s hard to comprehend and describe my feelings about how much I appreciate and value my relationship with my parents. It’s something that I never thought of so fondly before I left home and moved tens of thousands of miles away from them.

My Mom didn’t call the FBI, CIA, or the NASA — but she would in a blink of an eye if it was about me.

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