Tag Archives: filial piety

Palace of Care – Why Me?

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Photo by BP Miller on Unsplash

J: Hey man, I’m sorry for your loss. Do you have a few minutes brother?

X: Yeah.

J: Let’s go in there again. [Points to the right] You asked me why your Dad would only talk about it in your presence. I think he knew you would be able to handle it.

X: [Nod]

J: The family meeting the other afternoon was tough. Your Dad told everyone how he felt and what he wanted but the family weren’t able to listen, especially Aunty.

X: [Nod]

J: Even with all the voices raised, I heard what you said, how you advocated strongly on your Dad’s behalf. He heard it as well. You had his back, that’s why he said it in front of you first. You were really there for your him when he needed support the most, that’s something to be proud of. That impressed me, you’re a good man.

X: Thanks Doc.

J: Dad didn’t get exactly what he wanted but the gods heard his cry for help and responded.

X: [Nod]

J: You take care brother.

X: [Handshake]

I think therefore I am? – So that was Christmas

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Photo by Gene Gallin on Unsplash

Last Christmas I felt like the Grinch, which was a shame as apart from birthdays, Christmas is the only event I usually get into. My kids have no lived experience of Easter or Guy Fawkes Day or Hallowe’en as I am against the rampant commercialisation involved in those days. All restraints are thrown away for Christmas. Last year I just could not find the Christmas spirit at all. “Bah Humbug,” had become my anthem for 2023, due to various reasons.

Christmas has always been a family time for us and last year it made me think about all the people we had lost over the past 15 years. Christmas was the time when we would gather and share a whole day together. As we became older we had further to travel to make it back home, and we didn’t always make it back. Christmas had become a four generations event, and then too quickly it had become three generations again. That’s life, you live, you die. Life goes on, but it’s different, and that’s okay.

Filial piety wouldn’t allow me not to drag my family south for Christmas for a four day trip. At the end of the journey we were all relieved to be back in our own home again, even the dog. There is no place like home but home changes over time. Our lives are like movies, not snapshots. Nothing is frozen in place forever, things keep on changing, for better or worse, till death do us part.

Guest Post – Naomi’s Notes – Unsung Heroes

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Photo by Jessica Podraza on Unsplash

He was 14 new to the area, no siblings and only his mother and him.  They had been living up north; he didn’t know why they  moved and it didn’t matter. Everything was okay until his mum got sick.  She went to the Doctor and came back with lots of medicine.   When he asked what the Doctor said she brushed him off with “nothing for you to worry about son”.  

A month went by and his mother was getting worse.  They both went back to the Doctor, he said she needed to do some tests and he gave her a piece of paper and told her she had to go to the hospital for some x-rays and some other things that he didn’t know what they meant.   The doctor would contact her when he had the results.  The Doctor phoned a few days later,  he needed to see  her.   He told her she had cancer. 

He went to school at his mother’s urging.  His mother was alone, he worried she might need something and he wouldn’t be there to get it.   She reassured him she would be fine and would text him if she needed him.

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