This is short, and brief, as I am on my way to the gym.
Yesterday during Lantern Festival there were talks of putting my granny into an old person’s home in Yanjiao, on the border between Beijing and Hebei province. It would close to her elder son’s place, and everyone is getting so tired looking after her.
This is a difficult act for everyone, not least because of the idea of failure when it comes to filial piety and love. I’m still processing it myself, but at the same time I feel like I’ve been ready for it all along. She’s a vibrant, social, extraverted person, and I know what that feels like, because I am one, too.
There are other cadres at this place, and she’s always had that wonderful ability to make friends, enlist others, and be herself. This might be some sort of fantasy speaking, a mind’s rationalization, but if we could all see this as the next challenge and obstacle to overcome– the obstacle is the path– it could have so many benefits. A lot of her friends are already in homes and she talks to my aunt about checking them out.
Where will her extraordinary life go? Now I’m really rambling (signs of a lack of acceptance, probably. But I’m getting there)