Unluckybolte
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Momma's Boy
cautions: soft hearts may cry after reading this story, stay careful!
"You still call your mom before making any decision?" Faizan laughed, shaking his head at the table. "Bro, you're twenty-four. Grow up. People call you a momma's boy behind your back, you know that?"
The table went quiet for a second, everyone waiting to see how Ahmed would react. He just smiled a little, stirred his tea, and didn't say anything right away. It wasn't the first time he'd heard this. It probably wouldn't be the last either.
"Yeah," Ahmed finally said. "I know they say that."
"And it doesn't bother you?" Faizan asked, genuinely surprised. "People think it means you're weak. Can't make your own choices. Still tied to your mother's apron strings or whatever."
Ahmed put his cup down slowly. "Can I tell you something? Something I don't usually explain to people, because most people don't really want to hear it. They just want to laugh and move on."
Faizan shrugged. "Go on then."
"You know how long my mother carried me before I was even born?" Ahmed asked. "Nine months. Nine months of her own body changing completely, uncomfortable, tired, sick some mornings, unable to sleep properly most nights, just so I could exist at all. And that's before we even talk about the day I was actually born."
Nobody said anything. Ahmed kept going, quieter now.
"She told me once, when I was old enough to actually understand, that the pain of delivering me was the worst pain she'd ever felt in her entire life. Worse than anything she'd experienced before or after. And she went through all of it, fully knowing the pain was coming, just so I could take my first breath in this world."
Faizan shifted in his seat, not laughing anymore.
"That's just the beginning, though," Ahmed continued. "After I was born, it wasn't like her job was done. The real work started right there. I couldn't feed myself. I couldn't clean myself. I couldn't even hold my own head up properly for months. She woke up at two in the morning, three in the morning, sometimes every single hour, because I was crying and she had no idea why. Maybe I was hungry. Maybe I was in pain. Maybe I just needed to hear her voice. She didn't get to choose when she slept for years. My crying decided that for her."
"I never really thought about it like that," Faizan admitted quietly.
"Nobody does, until someone actually sits down and explains it properly," Ahmed said. "For six, seven years, maybe longer, she was basically responsible for every single part of keeping me alive. Feeding me, cleaning me, teaching me how to walk without falling, teaching me how to speak, sitting beside me when I got sick, worrying about me every single day even when I was perfectly fine and just playing outside somewhere. That's not a small thing. That's not something that fades away just because I grew older."
He paused for a moment, looking down at his cup.
"I remember one specific night," Ahmed said. "I was maybe five years old, running a really high fever. My father was traveling for work, so it was just my mother and me at home. She sat beside my bed the entire night, placing wet cloths on my forehead, checking my temperature every few minutes, not sleeping even for a second. I don't remember much from that night myself, honestly, I was too young and too sick to remember details clearly. But she remembers every single hour of it, because she lived through every single hour of it, terrified something bad might happen to me."
"That's rough," Faizan said softly.
"It's not rough," Ahmed corrected gently. "It's love. The kind of love that doesn't ask anything back in return. She didn't do any of that hoping I'd remember it, or thank her properly, or pay her back somehow one day. She did it because I was hers, and that was simply enough of a reason for her."
He looked up at his friends now, meeting their eyes one by one.
"So when people call me a momma's boy like it's some kind of insult, some kind of weakness, I honestly don't feel offended anymore. I used to, when I was younger and cared more about what people thought. Now I just feel a little sad for people who say it that way, because it means they've never really sat down and thought about what their own mother actually went through for them. Calling my mom before a big decision isn't weakness. It's respect for someone who's earned the right to be part of my thinking, through everything she carried for me, quite literally, before I could even speak a single word."
Faizan sat there for a moment, quiet, before finally speaking again. "I called my mom 'annoying' just last week for asking too many questions about my job interview."
Ahmed smiled, not in a mocking way, just gently. "Call her back tonight. Tell her you appreciate the questions. She's probably still lying awake somewhere, worried about how it went."
The table stayed quiet for a while after that, everyone lost in their own thoughts, maybe thinking about their own mothers, the sleepless nights they never witnessed themselves, the sacrifices made long before memory could even hold onto them properly.
Ahmed finished his tea and stood up to leave. "Being called a momma's boy used to feel like an insult," he said, mostly to himself now. "These days, it feels more like a badge. Because somewhere out there, a woman went through nine months of pain, the hardest hour of her life at delivery, and years of sleepless nights, just so I could sit here today, drinking tea with you all, complaining about small things that don't even matter. The least I can do in return is call her, listen to her, and never make her feel like everything she gave was somehow forgettable."
He walked out, already dialing her number before he even reached the door.
