Cal’s birth was a most awaited event in both my family and that of my son-in-law. She is the first grandchild in the two families, and everyone was looking forward to her birth. After all, it took all of six years after her parents’ wedding for her to come to be.
So what will you do when a dream that is about to be realized suddenly explodes? What will you do when people close to you start leaving because their expectation of you fell short? What will you do when clouds of insult push you to the corner, adding to your injury?
Sometime in the latter part of this year, our 95-year-old mother became terminally ill. She had been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease some eight years earlier. Out of respect for her privacy, I shall not mention the disease, but its common name alone is already a death sentence. At the onset of that diagnosis then, supported by a biopsy result, the medical specialist had advised me to prepare for her eventual death. “Within less than a year,” he had said. Eight years later, the medical prophecy had not happened.
The one thing that struck me about the London Olympics was not the magnificent performances led by that of the hugely talented, and even more hugely entertaining, Usain Bolt. It was not that China gave the United States a run for its money in gold medals and threatens to reach, or even surpass, it in [...]
As storm “Falcon” rains furiously and relentlessly on many parts of the country, and thousands of people desperately look for ways to get home without having to wade through flooded streets, I am here alone in my room, safe and comfortable, sorting out documents—test papers, lecture handouts and the like—from previous school years. When I come across some sculpted, molded and stamped circular objects that were awarded to me on my high school graduation day, I suddenly got nostalgic.
I walked into the restaurant and felt like I was in some sort of time warp, looking around with the same eyes but coming from a different, more insightful place. The last time I was here was almost two years ago, but it seemed much longer than that, knowing my life had changed dramatically since [...]
