The Next 20 Years
We spent much time in the last two weeks housekeeping, or more specifically tidying up the flat after the Portia’s contractors had had our air conditioners replaced and their piping rectified to the requirements of Mei Foo management, ahead of a general refurbishment of the external walls, which was to begin anytime now, but which could have been delayed because of the public holidays. Most of the work went ahead as planned, but one of the air conditioners – brand new – malfunctioned which caused Portia more trips to Mei Foo and some delays in removing the scaffoldings. They had since been taken down, but the fault remained. That would be another story.
As we tried to put things back, Su had new ideas on how to rearrange some furniture and fixtures – she is never short of ideas anyway – and I began to do some decluttering. In the meantime, the photo albums and artefacts Su brought back from Laguna City took up new storage space, sometimes at the expense of reducing space for my daily wears, so that things are not quite back to normal, but which we will have to learn to live with. We have a few weeks to plan and adjust before the Iceland trip.
On the same day I posted my last blog – which didn’t attract too many visible visits – Su posted on FB a somewhat personal and moving piece of about 300 words accompanied by an old photo of her taken with his father some 20 years ago. Her blog attracted more than 100 visits from friends all over the world in the first ten hours and still counting. I am not jealous – in fact I am happy for her – but that has got to be a present-day lesson on what would catch people’s attention and why. Su has since collected a substantial archive on the SIM ancestry with many old photos – many still in perfect conditions – some dated over a century old. She has also found out that her Uncle in Cambridge had published a book in digital form around 2018 with many pictures including at least one taken at our wedding. Looking back, I recall that her Uncle had spent some time in the flat, running through the drawers and retrieving old photos and other stuff before he sold the flat to us. And how did she find out about the publication? She learnt it from Shirley, her mother’s cousin, whose husband Paul Hung passed away at 92 when we were in Whisler earlier this year. Shirley had since passed Su a digital copy on which I had taken some glimpse. I asked Su to consider putting together some form of a memoir, but so far, she has not been enthusiastic. Nevertheless, she was somewhat supportive of my suggestion to start a sequel but was wary of the logistics involved and the timing for the operation. Or, more relevantly, do I have better things to do in the next 20 years? Su had responded by reflex that I could learn to play the piano better. Let’s see.
Yes, over the last week, we had discussed how long I would live. We both are cautiously optimistic that I could live to about 100, or that I would be around in the next 20 years. My mind went back to 2003, the year I retired from my only paid job and whence no one had offered me any jobs that pay. My very good friend then – the late Alex Kwan – took me to see his very good friend in TCM practice, who put me through some routines which required me to spend hours each day in his clinic on active and passive treatment, calculated to boost up my constitution to last the vicissitudes of life in the next 20 years. I think I gave up in ten days or even before that; and I am still alive and kicking.
Back to the present, and as I have been saying and implied in my first memoir, I have no time for things that would detract or reduce happiness, particularly as friends around are either getting old or have left. I certainly need to do more active decluttering, but that is certainly easier said than done. I have lived the last 23 years without a plan, although I have sort of made a pledge with Su to live 40 years with her from 2009, meaning that I would live to around 100. Most people these days do not think the object unachievable, and I have no cause to dispute that. The question of whether one needs a plan is for the individual to answer. As one looks around, with Trump having just delivered a sort of address that ought to have made a concrete and deliverable message, but which failed the mark miserably by any standard, with wars going on in the Holy Land and children and the innocent dying like flies and for no reasons, and with lies and untruths
circulating unabated and unchecked, and with the West willingly and obligingly following the whims of a reliably unreliable elected world leader, one wonders what is left for anyone who trusts and believes in God can do except to remind oneself of the lessons taught by the Birth, Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ our Saviour, which is what we Christians try to do in these few days in the lead up to Easter Sunday. I wish you all out there a Happy and Mindful Easter and may you and your loved ones be blessed by the Risen Lord.
