Losing my jolly

February 12, 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.

I’ve lost my jolly, and I want it back. I know the reasons for my general melancholy. It started with Covid and the restricted movement controls in 2020. Holidays became scarce. The rigmarole involved in organising any form of travel was a deterrent, as was the infectious disease itself. I remember the arduous loops my […]

Comeuppance

February 5, 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.

When I was younger, I honestly believed that bad people who do bad things will get their comeuppance in due course. I used to repeat this mantra to my husband ever so often. He was either wiser or just plain cynical because he was sure that wasn’t always the case. Older and a tad wiser, […]

Feel-good movies

January 22, 2024.Reading time 6 minutes.

I watched one. Then another, and before I knew it, I was searching for holiday/Christmas movies on Netflix. The soppy and predictable with happy endings variety. No shooting, killing, or maiming. No big companies or individuals with money, power and position abusing and rough riding everyday, regular people. No pain or misery. None of the […]

Palliative care

December 4, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

Before my mum became very unwell, I knew very little about palliative care. What little I thought I knew or understood was wholly inaccurate. It was first proposed to me by my mum’s cardiologist in August, 2021. He suggested that I contact UMSC’s palliative care as he could not longer treat my mum’s heart failure, […]

Deepavali 2023

November 20, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

Deepavali came and went last Sunday. It was the most low key in recent years. Even my mum, who looks forward to and gets excited to this one festival in a whole series of Indian celebrations each year, was reticent. This despite the presence of sister number 3, the family’s in-house chef, who returned home […]

Photographs

October 9, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

Niece number 3 snapped several photos with her pink, an ala-Barbie polaroid camera, at my mum’s recent 90th birthday party. She took one of my mum and me. An instant, hardcopy photograph that captured a special moment on a special day. A fitting keepsake. And, a party favour of sorts. See, touch, immediately own. I […]

Brother number 1

October 2, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

I spent some time with bother number 1 at his condominium a few weeks ago. He’s been suffering from rib-shattering coughs for quite a while. Diagnosed with 4th stage lung cancer last November, he was on a chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy trial program until recently with Beacon Hospital. According to his doctor, brother number 1 was showing […]

A milestone birthday

September 25, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

My mum turns 90 on Wednesday. She is the only 90-year old I know, up close and personal. None of my immediate family members got this far. My dad and my maternal grandmother left at 62. My paternal grandfather exited at 72 while my father-in-law passed on at 82, a distant contender. Kudos to my […]

Sister number 2

September 4, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

Sister number 2 left for Sydney last Tuesday. She came home in August to visit family. And, to help me care for my mum while Kalyani, the caregiver, was away in Sri Lanka. Having sister number 2 with us was an unexpected bonus. Honestly, I did not expect her to jump in to help me. […]

Happy memories

July 3, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

I didn’t want to write another post on the holiday my husband and I recently had in England. But I decided I will. Simply because it’s a happy way to relive it. After the Lake District, we spent another three nights, with my mum-in-law, in the Peak District. In a little village called Tideswell. Like […]