Tag: parenting

Need for Change

bench

“But everything would change the moment you say ‘I do,’” Becky pleaded with her sister. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

Belinda turned away from the mirror she had been admiring, to face her sister. She was tired, tired of waiting for the dust to settle down, tired of waiting for the one person who’d show her happiness again. Because despite fantasising much, Belinda knew she’d never be happy while she clung to her past, wallowing alone in the hallow house that her teenage daughter had hung herself in.

Belinda needed out, and Richard had a shiny green card.

The Homecoming

For Lisa, Richard’s homecoming was the biggest present. He had been abroad for four years, visiting only for his father’s funeral.

She examined his round shoulders, muscled biceps, and pruned beard. Her son had grown up. She welled up remembering the day he left home; a lanky lad going far away. But he had come back for her sixtieth birthday.

He pulled back the strings of his backpack, pulling out a tiny box. “Happy Birthday, Mom.” He smiled as Lisa’s eyes lit up at the chocolate cake. She hadn’t touched cake since her husband died of diabetes two years ago.

Life with Diabetics

After an exhausting brainstorming session, my colleague and I decided to take a break and get a cup of coffee. We walked together discussing work, seeming more professional in the pantry than we are in our seats.

My colleague grabbed a cup and filled it with a couple of spoons of sugar. And then she held it under the nozzle of the vending machine which ground roasted seeds and dispensed the magical liquid into her cup. It was my turn next. I grabbed a cup, skipped the sugar, and went straight for the nozzle.

My colleague looked at me surprised. She wasn’t the first one, and I know she wouldn’t be the last. I drink sugarless tea and coffee, I avoid processed sugar five days of the week, and am trying hard to quit the weekend candy crush saga.

Countless people tell me I shouldn’t be as obsessive about sugar as I am.

sugar-cookies

However, none of them know what’s it’s like growing up in a diabetic household. None of them know that my blood line is infested with a line of ants all lining up to get a whiff of our sugary blood. My grandmother was a diabetic. My mother is a diabetic. My aunt is a diabetic. Tell me I’m not paranoid to think I’m next in line.

Living in a sugar-coated family has changed the way I see my life. The last thing I see before going to bed at night and the first thing I see when I wake up is medicines. We have at least five plastic boxes, all colour-coded and named after every diabetic tablet available in the pharmacy. We’ve adopted med-speak as our secondary language; we speak in milligrams and figure out how diabetic someone else is based on how many milligrams they swallow every day.

Our conversations begin with stories about the time someone forgot to take their sugar pills, and our dinner talks involve verifying if there are enough medicines for the whole month.

I’m now accustomed to living in constant fear of self-raising flour and simple carbs. No other food has scared me as much as the soft, white, and deceptively harmless glucose granules. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve looked up the difference between glucose and fructose, without understanding it once. And sometimes, when I think I deserve a piece of candy or cake, I devour it, only to feel terrible about it later. I hate myself that I sometimes eat a sweet treat in front of my glucometer-cradling mother.

Still, every time I handle a spoon full of sugar, I hesitate and wonder how much is too much.

The types of diabetes you can get, the different ages in which you can get it, the symptoms, and preventive measures to keep your blood sugar in check are everyday discussions in the family of a diabetic. And when you’re growing up with these details hammered into your brain, it’s more than enough to suck the enthusiasm out of your life bit by bit.

There’s nothing sweet about living with diabetes. And there’s nothing bitterer than living with a diabetic.

Crossed Arms and Teary Goodbyes

I went to bed last night knowing that in less than 9 hours, I would bid farewell to my close friend.

Crossed Arms and Teary Goodbyes.jpg

My parents thought I’d wet my pillow with my tears. They were ready with tissues and shoulders in case I needed someone to console me. They stood by me ever supportive as I stood with my arms across my chest waiting for my friend to leave.

It was around 7 am, and I had had just dragged myself out of bed. I had slept well. So well for someone whose friend was going away to another country altogether.

I wasn’t worried. It was just another time zone. Besides, my friend and I only message each other a lot, and a five and half hours in between wouldn’t change anything much.

Not everyone else saw it the same way.

For my friend’s parents, he was going away for good. It was like he was abandoning them, running away without leaving a note.

As the previous day waned and the time for departure drew near, the father grew quieter and quieter. His voice grew smaller, his face duller, and his tension a little higher.

The mother, on the other hand, was panicking within. It was obvious, but she tried her best to cover it up by sweating in the kitchen instead. She cooked all his favourite foods; from fried chicken and sautéed fish, to stir-fried crabs, she wanted to make sure her son ate everything he could before he left the nest.

Ever since he booked his flight ticket, things had shaky at home. He had to mask his excitement so that his parents wouldn’t feel bad. For an outsider, it was all funny.

But on the inside, the family had broken down. Nothing was as big as the child leaving home to work in an alien country. That’s how parents are. They’re annoying, meddling, and saying things that we don’t like, and saying the right things almost all the time, which we don’t like even more. But they’re parents. At the end of a long day, they’re the ones who stay up all night wondering if the son has boarded the aircraft, and they’re the ones losing sleep because one plane crashed twenty years ago.

And there I was, my arms across my chest waiting for him to leave. I, the friend, didn’t even pretend to wipe away an absent tear. Well, what can I say, I not into public display.

Well, what can I say, I not into public display.