Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Pondering

This morning I went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned.  Exciting, I know.  I am not sure why dental hygienists feel like they need to have conversations.  It's awkward enough having someone invading your personal space without having to figure out how to answer their questions with their fingers in your mouth.

Today my hygienist, while very nice, was particularly chatty.  She wanted to know everything, where I am from, if I had kids, how old they were, what I did, how I met my husband.  You get the point.

Along the way she asked about where my parents lived, we talked about my brother's upcoming wedding, and then she asked... "Do you have any other brothers and sisters?"

I froze. 

Earlier when she asked about my parents and brother's wedding the thought crossed my mind that she may ask more questions, and I was hoping she wouldn't ask that seemingly innocuous question.  It's not that I don't want to talk about my brother.  I love talking about my brother and the opportunity to talk about him never comes up as much as I would like.  It's just that I don't like putting people in awkward situations and telling someone your brother is dead can be a bit awkward.

I told her I had two brothers.  One older, one younger.  Thankfully, she didn't ask anything more about them.  Maybe God knew I wasn't ready.

It still has me pondering how I should answer when in similar situations in the future.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I face similar situations and for the common ones I have prepared standard responses but the other night got hit with a whammie of a question. But at least the parent dropped the issue pretty quickly.

Michelle