Saturday, January 11, 2025
I am also human
My last trip to Shanghai was the longest I have been away from home since 1999 when I worked in Singapore. I was away for nineteen days.
I left home after Primary 3 to study alone in Perth. I vividly remember when I had to leave home when holidays were over, my heart always heavy during the last few days here and my tears flowed for weeks when I had returned Perth. Those days there were no mobile phones or WhatsApp. Mum would always comfort me and tell me that she will work harder so she can afford to bring me back home every term holidays instead of just year-end holidays. She indeed kept her promise.
I knew in my spirit God will bring me back to China. Just didn’t know when and how. Now that God has unfolded that return, I feel nostalgic as I always had mum to cover my emotional needs, even as an adult. She has been supportive and cheering me all along. I share with her all my fears, my insecurities, problems, and she had always comforted me. Now she being ill and in cognitive decline, I don’t have that support anymore. It is just me! And after work in Shanghai, it is just me in my hotel room trying to figure out what my life is all about. I work form 930am to 6 plus, 7 days a week in the hospital, then sometimes go out with our agents for dinner/PR.
It is sad not being around for my ailing parents to pursue the next phase of my career. It is my biggest regret, a thorn inside my heart. Dad has bad eyesight (legally blind) and fell down this week. My feelings are ambivalent, a whirlwind of emotions. I wasn’t even around for mum’s birthday on Dec 14 for the first time in my life as I was in Shanghai. Dec 15 was the birthday of the girl who left me. I have no ill-feelings as love cannot be forced and must come from the heart. I only wished I had been a better testimony of Jesus and His love to her. Life is full of endless possibilities and probabilities. It could have been like this or that instead…., but destiny has made its turn. But I know my prayers from the hotel room in Shanghai will summon God’s hand to protect and bless them. The comfort is mum has accepted Christ and is heaven-bound.
It is also hard to leave home albeit only for weeks after such a wonderful 2 weeks back home. All the friends, people I love and care for, the celebrations, laughter, the friendship. But I know the world has no room for people who are weak so once again I need to overcome these emotions, muster the courage to go back to that Shanghai hospital to do my best, and stay strong to do the work that God has planned for me.
