Honor

I read this piece of news in the papers. A father sold his home and then worked very hard every day with his wife, making fishing nets to pay off his deceased sons’ debt. Three of his four sons died in a super storm four years ago, owing huge sums of money. The couple is expected to work for years to come, in order to finish paying their sons’ debt. The father said he would do this for his sons. He is honoring his sons by paying their debt. It is not just the love of a father or a strong sense of responsibility that compels the man to do this. I call it honor. He is an honorable man. He is now 82 years old.

I see honorable seniors every day in Hong Kong. They may be old, and some may be a little messy. They are those ordinary people to whom you may not give a second glance when you meet them in the street. Some can be rather peculiar in their behavior, but they are all honorable people to me, just the same. They are respecting life by doing the best they can.

I see many seniors selling all sorts of stuff on the streets. I don’t think they are trying to make money. I doubt they can make good money out of the items they sell—pediclips, hairclips, buttons, rubber bands, candies and so on, which are usually worth no more than a few dollars. What I see is that they are trying to spend their time doing something useful.

An older woman listening to a Walkman and selling goods in a bag; an older man scrubbing the outer shell of an electric fan to remove the rust; a barber cutting hair on a pedestrian walkway under a bridge; a group marking their place every morning outside the train station to collect used free newspapers from passersby for recycling: All these sights tell me about seniors’ ingenuity in finding meaningful occupations for themselves. I find it an admirable virtue.

Senior cleaning rusty fan.

Fan repair king.

Selling phones and other electronic devices.

Seniors collect and recycle newspapers.

Senior retailer interacts with customer.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

On uselessness and being

I saw a couple in my Health and Cognitive Assessment Clinic one day. It was the husband who needed to come, upon the urging of his daughter. However, it was clear that the wife needed help, too.

Her physical health was greatly compromised 15 years ago as a result of complications from spinal surgery. She had been through great pain. She told us that, if it hadn’t been for her husband and her children, she would have been dead a long time ago. As we talked more, she became sad. She said she was coping well, because she didn’t talk about something that had happened to her. Whenever she would talk about this experience with someone, she would cry.

She didn’t go out, except for grocery shopping, and pretty much restricted her social activity to her small family circle. She told me how great her children were, supporting her both emotionally and financially. Her husband, in spite of minor memory problems, took good care of her. She pretty much couldn’t do anything for herself now, except take responsibility for her own hygiene. Her husband did the cooking and all the rest of the household chores. She was sad, feeling totally useless.

She didn’t know that her worth was in her being.

I wish all seniors knew that their worth is in their being. Just being there is good enough. Just being there and allowing their loved ones to serve them is a good and useful existence. Imagine the children’s loss and feeling of emptiness and loneliness at not having a mother, or a husband at having lost his wife—it is unbearable. Think of the joy and satisfaction of the children when they are able to take care of their beloved parents.

I sometimes think of one day losing my mother, who is now in her 80s. My father passed away a long time ago; when my mother dies, there will be no vertical lineage that I can claim. I will be all by myself, even though I have siblings. I will be someone without a mother. The mere thought makes me feel disconnected in this world.

Imagine the peace of mind and sense of completeness of a child at having a parent for whom he or she loves to care. Worthiness of existence is not counted by what we can or cannot do, but simply by who we are.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

Love of a mother

While I was recuperating from radiotherapy, my mother came to stay with me for a few months. Because she has memory problems, she could not remember that I was suffering from cancer. My brother and sister told her, but it didn’t register. Every now and then, my brother and sister and I would talk about my illness, such as taking my traditional Chinese medicine or going for follow-ups, etc. On these occasions, my mother would be reminded of my illness and then remember that she must thank the gods for me. Most Chinese people in Hong Kong have no particular religion, except worshipping their ancestors. My mother is this way.

One day, she asked us to buy a cooked chicken, fruits and Chinese rice wine, in order for her to thank the gods for having mercy on me. I bought a whole chicken, as is the traditional Chinese custom when you want to worship or show your gratitude to the gods.

It was a bright and sunny afternoon. We got the table ready, with the dim sum, fruits, teas and wines all properly arranged, just as Chinese people do when they make offerings to the gods. We even got some incense sticks burning.

My mother kowtowed to the gods for me. While on her knees, she softly mumbled her prayers, asking our ancestors to continue to bestow mercy on me. It had been a long while since I had seen my mother kneeling down praying to the gods. Nowadays, we are her “representatives” to go sweep the graves during the Ching Ming Festival. She is somewhat wobbly on her feet.

We were to go to my older brother’s home for dinner that evening. After appeasing the gods, the next thing to do was to cut the chicken. We wanted to share it with him. Western people use a knife or kitchen scissors to cut, but we use a chopper. As a child, I saw my mother chop up a whole chicken on a chopping board many times. I am aware that my mother is growing older and frailer, but I didn’t realize how weakened she has become.

I have vivid memories of my mother chopping up an entire chicken and then putting the pieces back together again in the shape of a whole chicken. She now struggled with the chopper and did not have the strength to cut the chicken into halves. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, I took out my scissors, and then Mom used it to cut the chicken into pieces. I offered to help, but she said that I wouldn’t know how to do it. She forgot that I am a grown woman. My heart ached to see that my mother could no longer do things that she was good at. I was not cognizant of the full picture of what my mother has lost to aging. The gulf between the images from back when I was small and the image I saw at that moment made me mourn my mother’s loss.

All these years that my mother has slowly been growing old, we have gradually been doing more and more things for her. My mother no longer takes care of us. We take care of her. She is used to not doing anything in particular and keeps calling herself “lazy.” But she actively took charge when she wanted to please the gods for her daughter.

This will probably be the last thing that my mother will do for me.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

On laws that you must make provision for your parents

I find it interesting as well as intriguing that Singapore and some provinces in China have laws stating that one must make provision for one’s parents. In those places, filial piety is not just part of a citizen’s moral obligation, but a requirement of the law.

What if the parents are awful parents? What if the children make provisions for their parents, but verbally abuse and mentally torture them? What if the children do not love their parents, and only provide for them out of a sense of duty? Would the parents like that? Would proud parents accept money from their children in that situation? What if the parents are well off but the children are not? I gave birth to my children and raised them until they could stand on their own two feet. Does that qualify me to receive lifelong provision from them?

I am very interested to know how the law addresses these questions in view of the complexities of human relationships.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

Reverse mortgaging finally coming to Hong Kong

When I was studying in Toronto and learned about reverse mortgaging, I thought it was a great idea. I still do, but it took a long time for it to happen in Hong Kong. In 2010, the banks finally started looking into its potential. I don’t know if it will work, given that Chinese people are so attached to the few bricks over their head. A sense of security for a lot of older people comes from the knowledge that they have a roof over them. Will they be able to give up this certainty and trust the bank enough to do it?

There is an interesting story to share about reverse mortgaging. Jeanne Calment, a French woman who lived to age 122 (1875-1997), had the longest confirmed human life span in history. When she was 90, she sold her apartment to a lawyer, Andre-Francois Raffray, on a contingency contract. It was agreed that he would pay her 2,500 francs a month until she died, and then he would own the apartment. She outlived Raffray after receiving more than $180,000, more than double the market price.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

The true value of things

I started using handkerchiefs a long time ago. I don’t exactly remember why, as it was so long ago, maybe because it seemed to be fancier, more romantic back then. I use them now to be more eco-friendly.

I was as vain as anybody else as a young person. I bought expensive handkerchiefs, such as the one shown in Exhibit A. And then, because I used them a lot, my mother one day bought me some hankies, such as the one in Exhibit B, from the market, where she went daily. I absolutely abhorred them—terrible design, poor quality, cheap-looking things—but, somehow, I never got rid of them.

There were some periods in my life when I used paper towels or tissues for convenience. When I finally reverted back to using hankies, I took out the handkerchiefs that my mother had bought me—and I use them. Not for a moment do I feel embarrassed about these unappealing handkerchiefs. They are not soft to touch, even after repeated washing, but they are functional, nonetheless. They were given to a daughter out of a mother’s love.

As I use them now, I think of the daily trips my mother made to the wet market close to home, to see what was fresh and enticing, to plan meals and buy food for her family. I picture that, one day, she came across some hawkers in the market selling handkerchiefs, and she thought of her daughter and believed that she should buy some for her. She looked through the stock and chose a couple that she thought were pretty. She must have been pleased that she had found something useful to give to her daughter.

She must have been somewhat disappointed that her little present was received with a somewhat indifferent, at best lukewarm, response. But my mother would not remember that now. It was one of a million things that, like all mothers, she did for her children.

Age offers people many advantages, one of which is giving us sufficient distance to adopt a broader perspective when appraising the true value of things in life.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

Making our mark

Ambitious people are not the only ones who like to make their mark on earth. Ordinary people who accept who they are also like to leave their mark.

I hike every weekend, as I have told you before. Over time, I have met people on the trail who are regular hikers, like me, and I have made their acquaintance. Some of them have grown attached to the trail and decided they have the right to do things to nature and the trail.

A trail doesn’t lie static. You will see occasional changes here and there that slowly modify the “scenery” of the path you thought you knew so well. I have started to observe things that people do to the trail. I have seen people—actually, I’ve seen the results rather than people at work—opening up small terraces by the hillside, in order to make more room for their daily exercise routines. They treat it almost like their own garden, and try to beautify the space by planting flowering shrubs along the border of the terrace they have created.

In another spot, some hikers must have burnt the grass to enlarge a small sitting area. They have cut off the smaller branches of surrounding trees to allow more sunlight to shine into the area.

Once, I met an elderly man who proudly told his companion about his gardening achievements, how he had relocated a small tree from another spot and planted it here. It hadn’t worked out, and now he had put a new tree, also transplanted, in that location, and he hoped this one would work out fine. I find it fascinating to hear his references to the hillside, as if it were his own garden.

I guess we all want to make a difference in this world, in whatever manner it may be and regardless of our humble origins. But, to my mind, children are the best mark we can make on this world.

We are so accustomed to thinking of age in relation to categories—children, adolescents, adults, seniors—or in terms of needs and functions—start pre-school at age 3 (or whatever), start to drive at 18 (16 in some countries), join a senior center at age 60, and so on. If we try to think of age in a nonlinear and expansive manner, not limiting our ideas of age and ageing to the boundaries of a physical body, and if age is a mark that we make as we travel through time, which changes in form and nature depending on our growth and development, then this mark gains or loses significance one way or another over time and finally becomes a mark we leave behind on this earth. Looking at life this way, it is not just great people who leave their marks on this earth. We have all left our “footprints” somewhere as we age. Isn’t this idea immensely comforting?

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.