Grief

Tonight, I left in the middle of my senior's retirement dinner. That, it hardly needs saying, is not what I usually do. I did so because of my daughter's loss of her pet.

Our hamster died this evening.

Our family had talked about the short life span of hamster. One day she would have to leave us. We knew it. But even the fate is somewhat expected, it turned out that mourning was more difficult than I'd have expected. When my daughter left a sobbing voice message on my phone, I knew I should stay with her during such awful moment. We mourned the very fact that our hamster can die. We mourned about her death that early and that suddenly, before we had chance to buy and refill her favorite treat of sunflower seeds.

I remember reading a research on children losing a pet between the age of 6 and 13. Even years after the pet's death, according to the study, some school-age children still described their loss as "the worst day of their lives." In many ways, this is very true. If you are a little disturbed by this, I am with you. For better or worse (okay, clearly worse now that she died), the bonding with our hamster has wired our brains to treat her as a family member. No one could pretend that losing a hamster is anywhere near as losing a toy.

We saw so clearly the need for a goodbye ritual. That helps. She wrote text messages to her friends, the way people announce the death of a family member. After writing a poem and a letter, Jasmine brought hand shovels to dig a grave with us. We held a goodbye funeral. In some sense, we are, all of us, in the end, social animals not supposed to bottle up the emotional pain.

Amen.

Choice

I am sure there are days when you come home late, when everyone is asleep. There is no easy way around this, aside from thinking of another occasion to reconnect. Rightly so: it isn’t easy.

Whew. Looking back, I find it hard to believe I had the first week of this month without a single chance to have dinner with family.

You read that right. I wasn’t able to go home for dinner for one whole week.

I felt my guilt. The hectic week before has taught me to be more sensitive to the personal life and family life. I’ve promised myself: There isn’t an excuse to leave my family without good reason. In turn, I’ve opted to skip a transplant infectious disease conference today. I don’t think it’s too bad a choice when I could spend a weekend afternoon outdoor with my wife and daughter. I just knew that I'd found out something more important than sitting in a lecture hall.

Revived

No matter how much I grow to love running, there are times when it's hard to keep running. The reason I skipped running for one whole month was that I'd been recovering from a knee injury.

As most runners know, such a break is, in effect, wrestling with addicts' withdrawal from coming off drugs or alcohol. Shakiness. Emptiness. Crankiness.

After doggedly following the ups and downs of a professional examination for the Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians this week, I felt like I should learn to get back up after falling down. That's what I told the examination candidates. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that I should more or less follow the same advice. I checked my kneecap, trying to figure out how much the discomfort resulted from twisting injury and how much from ice burns. Pray tell me - not too loudly please - I'm not the only dimwit who burns his own skin after applying ice pack to the knee.

The rain was not too heavy and should get me ready to run for 10 km, I thought. I braced myself for the challenge once I put on my running shoes. Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of picking up my speed, of running at my lactate threshold. It was in this state of mind that I finished my run with shoes all soaked and myself drenched by the rain. And, yes, rejuvenated.

Conversations

Finding the right way to communicate is not easy. If it were, we'd all live in a better world every minute of every day.

Many people don't know how communication works. Others will find the experience uncomfortable. A few will just roll their eyes. When you, like most of us, are boneheads in communication, settle for an easy-to-follow guidebook. I happened to come across The Communication Book written by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäpper. It's a fast read, and consists of 44 important communication theories.

One important take-away lesson for me is the mantra: "Listen, don't talk; it's not about you."

When was the last time you hear from an acquaintance who has lost a family member? Be careful. Don't start talking about the time you lost a family member. This means you should resist talking about yourselves. You're trying to draw parallel and show that you understood how your friend feels, I know. In reality, as the radio broadcaster Celeste Headlee put it in a TED Talk, it's not the same. It's never the same. Don't share your own grief stories and personal anecdotes.

Remember, it's not about you.

Sprain

Injury during ski does happen, and I had mine in Hokkaido.

After buying an all-mountain pass, an electronic tag gave me access to all chairlifts and gondolas. I knew my standard pretty well and confined myself to beginners' terrain. That's what green circle ski slope rating symbol stands for. A green trail is de rigueur for those in search of adventure but not too thrilling one. Strange though it might seem, I still sprained the medial collateral ligament in my left knee on a green slope.

I fell. A bad fall. Gratefully, I didn't hear a pop sound, and still could stand up wobbly. Maybe I didn't tear my ligament. Yet.

I pressed on my left knee and tested the movement, seized with a sudden and foreboding dread so immense, so tense, that I could almost feel the terror pulsing inside me.

"Can I run again?" I stared at my knee, mouth agape. That's for me to worry about.

Blizzard

On the second day of our ski trip in Hokkaido, we were hit by a massive snow storm bringing gusts of wind up and plunging temperatures down. All the way below minus twenty degrees.

I was skiing on beginner terrain with my daughter. We passed each other. Our eyes met for a half second. Maybe less. Then we accelerated, turned right and left, concentrating on finding the way downslope. We seemed lost, dazed, as if we relied more on memory than vision to locate the path. Alas, only the most intrepid skier, if not Yeti, would dare to continue in such cluttered condition.

Without hesitating, we cut short the mountain activity. The afternoon was better spent indoor, I thought. Perhaps a book to read with a cup of coffee. In another moment, I was brewing coffee.

Bringing with me a novel has always been my travel plan. This time, by coincidence, I had All the Light We Cannot See. This novel's title more or less sums up my experience with the snow storm.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

We hear story after story of the extraordinary dreams which came true and flourished. Not too many stories get passed along, though. Not that great stories can't pass down from generation to generation, most of them can, but they never stick inside our heads as we get old.

Think Mary Poppins, a classic and evergreen story. We all remember the two cheerful children, Michael and his sister Jane. Who won't? Their names bring to mind supercalifragilisticexpialidocious flying adventure with a magical nanny and a chimney sweep. They were jolly. Well, up to a point.

That's what I found out when I brought my daughter to watch the sequel movie Mary Poppins Returns this morning. The two of them had grown up, and were preoccupied by all those no-nonsense adult business, from plumbing leaks to the bank loan. We all sensed how their appearances had changed. In which all their humor had been handed in and vanished.

Under the watchful eye of the Great Slump, Michael and Jane exchanged surprised looks when they heard the mantra "Everything is possible - even the impossible." They could no longer believe in that.

But they were wrong.

In the same way we needed to grow up when we were children, now that we are adults we need to grow down. If growing up means getting mature, growing down is about learning again to become more open, curious and creative.