As imperfect we have flaws and we make mistakes, but sometimes we have a particular bad habits we tend to repeat often, personally i have a bad habit which i need to correct, to some people it may not seem to be a bad character or a bad habit.
Personally i have this habit of not communicating with people, i find it difficult to check up on my distant relatives and friends, and this is not because I have something bad against them but it's just that i easily lose interest in communicating with them. ( I don't know the reason why)
Over the years I've lost good relationships with people because of my bad character, i could stay for months without calling anyone except my mum and my sister, one crazy thing about me is my hatred for calls 📞. I dislike phone calls, i prefer texting or chatting rather than calling me ( another bad character i need to change).
This character has affected me both negatively and positively but the negative side of the has affected me more . I grew up with my grandmother, while i was still staying with her, I'd always sneak to call my parents everyday with my grandma's phone, sometimes she'd shout at me for wasting her air time.
After i left my grandma's house and went back to my parents, I don't usually call my grandma, i only speak to her when my parents call her over the phone, she make statements like...
Oma, you've forgotten me, you no longer call me the way you use to call your parents, oma did i ever wrong you?
These words would always pierce my heart, I'd be filled with instant guilt and regrets for not trying to communicate with her, at a point she felt ill and I didn't reached out to jer the way i was supposed to, anytime i remember to call her, something would always come up and it'd skip my mind to call her after, this bad character of mine continued even on her dying bed.
Sometimes whenever i talk to her over the phone, probably my mum called her and she's pass the phone to me for me to speak with her, in her words she's say...
Omachi, you remembered me today, please keep calling, your calls makes me happy and makes me feel healthy .
Regardless, i still didn't call her, i don't have anything bsd against my grandmother but i allowed my bad take the best of me. Few months ago my grandmother illness grew worse, sometimes she'd not be able to pick her calls when I finally called.
The day my grandmother died, my mum tried calling her to know how she was fairing, but she couldn't respond to us properly, i could barely hear what she was saying, my uncle who was with the phone told use she's not sound because she was reacting to a drug she took, i felt so guilty throughout the day, i couldn't believe there would be a time she won't be able to speak to me .
Later that same day, everything felt so off and weird, i couldn't just figure out what was wrong, i just had the feeling, while at work, i couldn't concentrate I just wanted to go home and relax. That same night, my dad was just receiving calls from different all his phones (which felt more weird at that moment) .
I got a call from a family member, and the first thing mu dad asked was...
Who is calling you?
I could be on the phone for a long time and my dad wouldn't even care about who i was on the phone with, the question got me thinking, what was wrong?, my mum on the other hand was like asking why he was monitoring my calls , but he refused to give her an answer. Somehow, my dad hid my mum's phone, preventing her from receiving any calls and asking me to go to bed and sleep.
The next day, after the usual family prayers, my dad broke the news to us my grandmother had died, i felt like my head was spinning for a second, i just didn't know how to express the shock and the pain . It's was then it dawn on me why my dad and everything feeling weird.
I have been feeling guilty ever since my grandmother died, i never treated her right , if I always call to check on her it would've made her happy and who knows, she may not have died the time she did, writing this with tears in my eyes, I can't just forgive myself, i should've been a better grandchild to her.
I know i still need to work on myself and my bad habits, lately I've been trying to communicate with my loved ones and friends, check on them to know how they're doing.