Sunday breakfast with my dad triggered a flashback and a spiel
It’s morning and I’m sitting at the breakfast table with my dad eating half-boiled eggs with dashes of soya sauce. Just like we used to do every schoolday when he would send me to my grandparents’ flat where I would spend the morning and then walk to school in the afternoon. Everything’s as before, except for a pot of sweet milk tea that my grandfather would brew first thing every morning without fail for the household to drink throughout the day. And the most porous white bread I’ve ever eaten in my life, which seemed to be the dominant thing on the market back then. Thinly sliced white bread without crusts sold in clear brandless plastic bags tied shut with a loop of raffia string or sometimes crimped and stapled.
Anyway, the flashback has reminded me that yesterday my aunt mentioned that my dad would be well enough to return to his home any day now.
He’s been living with us post his cataract surgery so my aunt could take care of him. He’s 84, and that means my time with him is short. Though he’s more more agile than me in some ways, going up and down the stairs effortlessly, we know humans have a certain lifespan. So I’ve appreciated these past two months that we’ve been living together under one roof, something I’d not been doing since I left home at 21, which is an unbelievable 28 years ago.
Anyway, I’m every day conscious that my time with my dad is short. But yesterday underscored it. Even if the morbid eventuality happened years away, my time living with him could be up in a matter of days.
I’ve seen a quote floating around the internet attributed to the Buddha that says, “The trouble is you think you have time.” I don’t know the veracity of that quote because I’ve seen a quote of Abe Lincoln that admonishes, “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet. I saw a meme with Lincoln’s face on it so I know it’s true.
But whether Buddha actually said it or not, it’s true. The trouble is we think we have time. Whereas the truth is we’re all “already naked,” as Steve Jobs famously put it in his Stanford commencement address.
So, whether you think the end of the world will come in decades, days or never, remember, every day is the end of the world for someone.
So put down your phone for a moment, step outdoors, look up to the sky, fill your lungs and go carpe the crap out of that diem.
Stay conscious, stay free!
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