When he heard that his mother was in the hospital, Aaron drove to Montreal.

“I’ve had time to think,” she told Aaron when he sat beside her bed in the ICU. “It’s quite simple really. I feel I’ve neglected my children over the years. My priorities have been to help others by being on charitable boards with the men.” Aaron liked that his mother had finally come to this realization.

“I’ve decided. When I’m discharged from the hospital, I’m going to spend more time with my family. If the men want me to join their boards and attend their meetings, they can accommodate me. From now on, they can hold their meetings in the late afternoons, instead of at 7:30 in the morning.”

Aaron left his mother, pleased that she will be the mother he and his siblings had always wanted.

Two weeks later, when his mother had been discharged from the hospital, he called her at 8:00 in the morning, as he always had in the past. His mother’s housekeeper answered the phone.

“Maria, can I speak with my mother?” he asked.

“Aaron, your mother is at the hospital,” she told him.

“Has she been ill?” he asked, thinking his mother might have had a relapse.

“No, Aaron; she had a 7:30 meeting with the men,” Maria informed him.

“Please tell her I called; I’ll call her back later this afternoon.”

He called his mother at 4:00 that afternoon.

“Mom, Maria told me you were at the hospital when I called at 8:00 this morning.”

“Yes, dear, the men asked me to join them for a 7:30 board meeting.”

“Do you remember what you told me when I visited you in the hospital?”

“No, dear, what did I tell you?”

“You told me that since you had become ill, you’d had time to think and had decided you would spend more time with your family. You said that in the past you’d neglected us by agreeing to join the men whenever they scheduled a meeting of one of the boards of which you were a member. You said that if the men wanted you to join them for a meeting in the future, it would have to be when it doesn’t interfere with spending time with your family, that is, in the later afternoon rather than at 7:30 in the morning.”

“Oh, Aaron, it’s I was sick when I said that.”