- The father, the son and the hole -

He was up again this weekend, his usual dark yet amusing and distinctly caring self. He struggled with a suitcase, a trolley-bag, a laptop and a huge styrofoam box, the last of which contained the fruits of her labour, all of it painstakingly separated into bags, each containing enough for precisely one meal.

He was up for a mere 2 days, yet he was fussing up and down the room, washing the plates and heating up the dumplings and slicing the guavas and handing me my ang pow. He was absolutely knackered from the flight, and yet I kept him up importuning him to regale me with tales of him and her, just because I could.

I ditched him and went for my match the next day, while he single-handedly brought everything from Gloucester to Farringdon over 2 or 3 trips, and somehow found some way to entertain himself for the afternoon. Later, I returned home and there he was, pottering about, whipping up a storm as usual.

He was due to leave London only at 8 on Sunday, yet I left the Millenium at 11, citing work as my excuse. Yet when I returned I did nought but perfunctorily flip through some exercises before going online. I tried my hardest to give him a call or to text him that afternoon, but the constraints of the beast that is technology just cannot be breached when you most need to.

There are times I simply loath the things he says or does. To be fair, I cannot understand some decisions the both of them make, or stand the things that they do. They can make me absolutely pissed off, until I quell my anger for a second and stop to think about the little things they do for me, the sacrifices they make sometimes. He cooks his own rice when he's overseas, scrimping and saving so he can spend the allowance on us, his profligate scions. She has had to endure a lot for us, much more than you could imagine. Then I realise that I'd never have made it here if not for them -- heck, they've done one helluva job. And all of a sudden there's nothing they're culpable for; they immediately become absolved of all blame.

So to quote, "I believe your parents knew the best job they knew how to do". They can be unreasonable and overbearing at times and not make much sense (and those times you have every reason to be irritated), but noone's perfect. Would you trade yours?