on Sunday, October 03, 2004
I don’t know if life is fair anymore. Well I used to think that if I don’t have what others have, God will compensate me in other ways .(BTW I don’t believe in religions but I do believe in God.) However after I watched the Cancer Charity Show tonight, I don’t feel that way anymore.
Here is why:
I was watching on of those “tug the heart strings” segments of the show where there was a short story on how this man got cancer and his wife couldn’t afford the treatments and their kid was sensible and how much pain the man was undergoing that he would bang his head against the wall when he was in pain. The family couldn’t afford treatment and the chemotherapy was dragged for a couple of months.
After watching that segment, I tear up a little. This is real. This is life. This is not one of those “sulking because I couldn’t get the shirt in my size during a Mango sale” moments. At that very min, I felt very ashamed of my selfishness. These are people with real problems and all I do all day is to grumble about my life.
These folks have financial problems and they couldn’t afford medical treatments. Hence, the chemotherapy treatments have to be delayed. I wonder what about his life? Is that all it is? His life is being quantified by how much dough he has? That is unfair. I guess rich folks don’t have to worry about these kind of problems (I have nothing against rich people.) but what happens to people who can’t afford the money and the govt subsidies aren’t enough? What can they do? So that’s it? Their lives are just not “worth it’?
Cancer is a very scary thing. (Like all illnesses) You never know when you will get it. It is extremely painful. When I was watching the show, I was secretly hoping that my grandpa wouldn’t be watching it. But I know he will turn on and sit in his favorite chair watching whatever crap is on TV at that time of the night.
My grandpa is a Cancer patient. The extremely kind and soft spoken man has being diagnosed with lung cancer a couple of months back. He asked the doctor if he had cancer while I couldn’t hold back my tears in the same room. Talk about bravery. Wanting to go for radiotherapy, trying different medications. My grandpa, who will walk all the way to the fish market in Senoko from Marsiling just to buy some fishes and give it to my aunts. The man who put me in the cradle when I was a baby. My aunt told me that his pain was so bad that he said that all he couldn’t do was to “burrow into the ground”. I wish I could share his pain. I wish I could understand his pain. But I couldn’t. This is me, the girl who flinches whenever she thinks jabs. And I couldn’t bear it if my dearest grandpa couldn’t afford to go for the treatments and couldn’t get some relief from the excruciating pain.
I am wondering if the people in need of help would be getting enough to help them thru. Life is unfair for the poor man who couldn’t afford the treatment. It is also unfair to my grandpa, who is really one of the good guys around, to suffer the pain.
As much as im tired of watching charity shows on tv all the time, I really do think that we should help those people who are less fortunate. We have compassion. These are the times to put it to good use. Help them and help ourselves.
Carina
11:46:00 PM
