I know what you’re thinking but it’s not that!

I read in the papers that a Taiwanese actress recently took her father to Kyoto. She must be in her 50s now so I surmise he is in his late 70s. Whilst they were out and about, he needed to relieve himself and she helped him to the toilet. He was embarrassed about his wearing a diaper and asked her to look away. She told him – I’ll change your diapers the way you changed mine. No matter how old you are, I’ll always love you.

For some reasons, the narrative and focus of family love has shifted firmly towards children. Facebook is the place to look. It is filled with pictures of happy kids on holidays, happy kids in restaurants, happy kids going about their lives. I have nothing against that of course but I often wonder why there isn’t more of happy parents on holidays, in restaurants, and going about their lives. Perhaps Facebook doesn’t tell the whole story – social media is for the young after all. Or perhaps it does, and we just don’t share our lives, and love, with our parents the way we do with our children.

Has it always been like this? I’m not sure. Growing up, the importance of filial piety was drilled into us, in school, on television, from books. Err.. Chinese ones, that is. That we have a lifelong duty to our parents is as unquestionable as Earth being round. Do they still teach that in school, the duty bit, that is? I must ask Son.

The logic is irrefutable to me. Our parents gave birth to us. They fed us, clothed us, educated us, supported us, protected us. And they still love us, even if we are middle aged uncles and aunties, whether we are successful CEOs or struggling professionals. The same way we are feeding, clothing, educating, supporting, protecting, and loving our own children, even if they are not Joseph Schooling. So we owe our parents a fundamental “debt”, no? Which ought to be repaid? I know there are always exceptions, parents who are absent or abusive etc. and that’s a difficult topic. But I imagine most of us have fairly “normal” parents.

Husband explained to me the “Western” perspective. You are born, you grow up, you leave the nest when you’re 18 or so, and your life from that point on is yours. Yes, you call, you visit, and you do your Christmas dinners, but your and your parents’ lives are like a Venn diagram in which the two circles only just touch each other. You share a history but you no longer share a future. The cycle repeats itself with your kids. You live your life around them until they leave the nest. And then they’re gone, and you get on with your own life, hopefully happily with your partner.

In many ways, this model is much easier. It’s paying your debt to your parents through your children and that debt is repaid when the kids leave, and no one owes anyone anything anymore. Easier, but somehow also feels emptier, at least to me.

I don’t have such expectations of Son by the way. As I discussed in “My gentle giant”, my working assumption is that I’ll only have 15 or so years of his life. The relationship we have after that is up to him to define. I can only hope I would have done sufficient right things during the time we have for him to want a relationship Venn diagram in which two circles substantially overlap. Partly, this is my acknowledgement that he doesn’t share the same background as me, and partly, I do not wish to saddle him with the burden of expectations.

But I do have those expectations of myself as a daughter. I see it as my duty to take care of my parents until the very last moment. For all that they’ve done for me, this is the least I can do for them. I’ve chosen to live very close to them so seeing them is as easy as popping over. Husband, bless him, has always understood. We have dinner at theirs and Mum does our grocery shopping – I know, we’re very lucky – so that even if I can’t tell you the price of spinach, I have time to tell you many other less useful things through this blog!

In the last couple of years, Dad and Mum have aged significantly. They were both very good looking in their days, as I was frequently told and can tell from old pictures. Mum is almost seventy, and Dad is a couple of years younger. Age spares no one but I’d like to think has treated my parents relatively well. I hope it continues to. Mum is still super energetic. Dad, less so. He has more health issues but relatively minor for which I’m thankful. I know he thinks about his mortality, how much time he has left with the family he loves. I think about that too, how much more time we have with them. I wonder too what it’ll be like when they become even older – will they remain lucid? Will the day come when they can no longer take care of themselves? What’s the solution? In my mind there’s only one – they’ll come live with us. Bro has three kids and it’ll be tougher for him. I’m ready for that, having spent the last 15 years preparing (Husband) for it!

Dad in recent weeks finally embraced whatsapp. He sent me a video, of a pair of birds, building a nest for their nestlings, feeding them worms painstakingly caught until the moment came when they were strong enough to take flight. And all that was left were the two of them. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to tell me something but Pa, no matter how high I fly, I will never forget. And I will always come back.

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