This is Life

Every once a week when I take my elder kid to her enrichment class, I would pop over to visit my Boss who is still heavily sedated in an ICU ward.

Our close working relationship is only part of the reason I visit her so frequently. Another part of the reason is I feel that to a large extent, her stroke not only affected her destiny, it also has a great impact on mine.

If not for her stroke, I would not get a D. She would be at the management meeting to speak up for me for the amount of work I have done and the academic impact I have made on the upper levels.

If not for her stroke, I would not contemplate quitting. All along, I thought I would be a teacher till I die, amidst the grumbling and grouses.

Whenever I visit her, I think about how she would feel if she could feel, how she would think if she could think, how things would be very different for me and for her if not for her stroke, how life indeed makes sport of us, albeit in a not-so-funny way, when she will be able to get up and walk, when she can start on a physiological therapy to ensure her mobility, when she will regain her senses.

When she called me on 24 August and asked if everything was alright, I was tempted to tell her that I was given a D. But I thought it not exactly appropriate since she wasn't my sup and was on her maternity leave. I thought that she would be informed about it when she returned to work in October anyway, and she would be able to speak up for me then.

It was only a matter of days, and she fell to a stroke. And my fate, and hers, were sealed.

I wish I could say that life is unfair, juvenile as it sounds. Yet I know: this is life.