The Future is Now

How this elder generation had, set a very good example for his own offspring to follow, and how the values are being, passed down from one generation to the next, translated…

As My Father-in-Law Worked as a Disciplinary Officer at the Schools

I was newlywed, went home from Kaohsiung to visit his families in Zhongli, on the long journey by train, we sat next to a man, and I struck up a conversation with him, he graduated out of Zhongyuan Institute of Science (now the Zhongyuan University), he’d worked for a public office, he was very grateful toward a disciplinary official at his school, who’d pulled money out of his own pockets to help him as he wasn’t able to pay the tuitions to continue his education, and it’d helped him graduate successfully from the university. And, the disciplinary official of the school, WAS my father-in-law.

Back when my father-in-law was the head of the disciplinary department at school, that was when my mother-in-law’s house was at its poorest, the trials of raising up five children still in school, and my mother’s gambling habits had, made her accumulated a ton of debts, he’d worked days and nights, to make the money, and, in that condition, he could still manage to help a student make his way.

My father-in-law had always been kind, gentle and mild toward others, the students, the vendors, his neighbors, friends, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, he’d always carried that humble attitude about him. And my mother-in-law had always been angered easily, unreasonable, and she’d fought with people outside, and acted like she’d ruled the house at home, when her children could no longer deal anymore, my father-in-law told us lightly, “She’d married me when she was quite young, and was taken to Taiwan by me, I’m all she has, I can’t ever, just desert her!”

My father-in-law is already ninety-eight, in recent eight years, he’d started becoming impacted by his physical illnesses as well as his dementia, like the old vinyl record that were scratched on top, every time it’d turned to the scratch, he’d lost the memories from that segment of his own life, and, with the passing of time, there were, more and more scratches on top.

As he’d sunk, into his most primitive memories, and started ranting with worries, and all those memories, we’d not weathered through personally, we couldn’t understand his thick accent, nor could we help alleviate his distress, we can only, use the details he’d given of his life, and, help him resolve the situations, best as we knew how, and after the chaos, everything returned back to normal again. And yet, this had been happening, repeatedly, the record kept getting played over the scratches, and, he’d felt tortured time and time again too.

Living with His Righteousness, Not Ruining His Parents’ Reputations

My father-in-law loved to read, every morning when he got up, he’d turned to the newspapers, it’s just, that at certain points in time, he couldn’t, recognize the characters, and needed my husband to read it to him. And the news that are printed would often rouse up something in him, the Sunflower took over the Executive Branch of the government, he’d flown into a panic, thinking that that was the end of this country; as President Trump was sworn in as president of the U.S., he’d hollered on he was heading somewhere for an important meeting…………we’d stopped the newspaper subscriptions, to reduce the affects on his emotions, but, after he’d found, that there wasn’t the newspapers anymore, he’d started mumbling to himself by the day out of anxiousness, and became, even harder for us to take care of, and, after stopping the newspapers subscriptions for only a week, we’d, subscribed to the papers again.

My father-in-law loved his grandchildren so, and from before, he’d made the small chairs himself for them to sit; before the suppers, he’d pushed them out in their strollers, to see the trains passing by on the tracks; in the tracks of the schools, he’d raced his grandson, played sports; and, the annual camping trip was their favorite thing of the year.

Other than playing with them, my father-in-law hadn’t forgotten, to teach his grandchildren how to be good people, with that deep seated expectation of them to be well, expressed in his words. Actually, with my father-in-law as their example, the children and grandchildren are all very well rounded, kept at each of their separate posts, and, there are various occupations of teachers, nurses, doctors, attorneys, actuaries, and everybody does her/his job well, “We were born from you, and we don’t bring shame to you”.

illutration from online…

The future had come, so swiftly, and now, I have four young grandchildren too, and, just like how my own father-in-law showed his love to our son, I’d taken my own grandchildren to play out, to tell the stories, to have the yummy foods, passing this heritage along, they are, written in my history, and I, in theirs too.

Two days ago, my four-year-old grandson came to me confused, “Grandma, great grandpa must be old, right? And will you and grandpa grow old like him too?”

My wonderful grandson, you’d, already been, introduced to the cycle of life now. Yes, grandpa and grandma will one day grow old like this too, as will you, everybody has a past, and we all have our nows, and, everybody is marching toward her/his own futures, you’re still at the starting lines, I’m sure, that in the future, you will be able to say to your parents too: “We won’t shame you, because we live by the right values you’d, taught to us”!

And so, this, is how the heritages of a family gets passed down from one generation to the next, with the elders that set the right kind of examples for their offspring, and, their offspring followed their elders’ footsteps, and set a good example for the next generations to come…