A mother's instinct

Nathan my son went on his first ever trip overseas to Bali. As his mother I felt it was my duty to give him some good advice. I told him (a) hold your hand over your glass of drink at all times. (b) don’t take a boogie board with you, (an Australian girl did this and is now in jail in Bali. Apparently drugs were found in her boogie board). (c) no child of mine is allowed to die before me. Of course he agreed with all I said, as a good son should.We have kept in touch by messaging on the mobile. Everything was well with me until today. I had a particularly long session with a client and during the session my phone rang twice and I let it go to message bank, then I had a message on my mobile phone. Thirdly I heard a garbled phone message from Reception saying there was a message in my pigeon hole at the front desk.‘Oh I thought someone is trying hard to get hold of me. My blood ran cold, well that could be a bit of an exaggeration, but I certainly had some odd thoughts. Something has happened to my son. Mothers know these things you know.“Nath has phoned to tell me they have bombed Bali again!’ ‘He is in jail for some reason’. In an extremely stressed state I ended the counselling session, I could hardly wait to get out of the room. My poor client, I only hope she didn’t think I’d gone mad or was rejecting her in some way.Finally, legs shaking, breath coming faster, I raced down to the reception area to find out what the terrible news was.‘Oh said the Receptionist, I was letting you know the lunch you ordered was in your pigeon hole.The message left on my mobile was indeed from Nath. He had messaged me to say he was in a lovely village in the Bali country attending a traditional Balinese wedding and how peaceful and serene it was.Peaceful and serene, rather ironic I thought, when I had never felt less so in my whole life.