Stopping to Listen

     A few days ago, I was reading a book on the couch.  It had been a long day, and I was tired.  I was at that point in the novel where everything is going nuts.  The hero and heroine were running for their lives.  Guns, smoke, falling rocks.  Then from somewhere far away, I heard this voice break in.
     "Hey Mom.  Did you know there was a type of music called "trance"?"
      A few feet away, my teen-aged son had spoken.  
     "Huh?"  I replied, looking up slowly from my book.
     "There's this type of music called "trance"?  And ....."
     He wasn't finished, and he wanted to talk.  I wanted to read.  
     It was at that moment that I had a choice to make.  I was tired.  The book was in its literary climax.  My son wanted to talk.  
     I put the bookmark in the book, closed it, and listened to my son discuss different types of music for the next 15 minutes, saying little, but showing that I was interested simply because the subject is important to him.  
     If I've learned anything about parenting a teenage boy, it's that when he wants to talk, you should listen because if you don't, he'll stop trying.  Little ones are persistent.  They don't give up.  They keep trying.  Teenage boys -- not so much.
     The book could wait.  My son could not.  

Lord, help me to remember this -- every single time.