Dinner time

Quietly we sat at the dinner table, and I watched as mum painstakingly took a tiny bite of won-ton, chewed, and swallowed. She immediately screwed up her face in pain and agony, what degree of pain or agony I could never really feel nor emphasise with. She took a few more bites, had a bit of tofu, drink a bit of soya milk, ate a few cherry tomatoes, and that was dinner.

I looked at her, annoyed for some reason, even though I have no reason or right to be annoyed. I wasn't so much annoyed at her, more at the entire situation. I would like her to eat, eat a more balanced diet so she wouldn't loose more weight, so she can gradually her strength and health in preparation for traveling. Yet, with each radiotherapy treatment, she feels her throat ache more and more, and the expression on her face whenever she swallows, even if it is just a sip of  water is unbearable to watch. With each radiotherapy treatment, it is as if the planned trip is getting a little more uncertain...

"It's not that I don't want to eat," she said, "It's just it hurts a lot every time when I swallow". She put down her chopsticks, and said she knows I mean well. Softly she recounted how, as a child, she used to worry whether I ate enough, whether I was healthy, whether I was ill, whether I was cold, whether I was too warm, whether I slept well and slept enough... Now, it is I who worry about her. "It's funny isn't it, how life changes?"

Funny, yet in a way extremely, extremely moving.