Hands

I have been planning to go to that store since this idea came to my mind. Inadvertently one day, some years ago I came across the store while walking around downtown. It specialises in products made from Formosan Hinoki (cypress), which has an extremely fragrant and therapeutic aroma. The wood is often used to make furniture or tubs for soaking your body or feet.

Last year, I bought a tub for mum to soak her feet. Soaking helps the blood circulate more and also reduce any feelings of pain or discomfort. It also warms up mum's feet, which are often ice cold, due to bad circulation.

As the numbness in mum's hands are getting worse, what better idea is there than buying mum a smaller tub for just her hands? One that she can carry because it's more compact and lighter.

The store owner was nice, and I told him what I was looking for and why. I'm guilty of "exploiting" other people's sympathies, especially if it can get me a deal. But the local culture is such that you can bargain, because especially for a product with no set price, they usually set the price high.

He was touched. It's rare, he said, for children these days to want to take care of their parents. He reduced the price by almost $30 NT$700) when he heard I was buying it for mum.

Later in the conversation, I added that mum has cancer, and that I just hope to do anything I can to make her feel comfortable. Anything at all to remove her discomforts and her pains. anything at all to touch her heart and make her feel loved and cared about. This was not in a devious attempt to bargain, but to genuinely talk to someone about what I'm doing, and why I do what I do.

Because it's a touching story I am experiencing and living, one that should be told and shared, one that I humbly hope can inspire others tp spread a little more care and love to those around them. This is not about one boy trying to make a little difference. The story is about the strong-willed fighter, and the final days before retirement after a long, difficult struggle.

The man patted me on my shoulders several times, and shared with me his own story of when he took care of his aged parents, who have now gone. "Three grains of peanuts is worth more than a pig's head afterwards..." He said, alluding to a Taiwanese proverb about how little offerings to your loved ones when they are alive is worth much more than trying to make up for things after they are gone. Grand offerings (like a pig's head, which is locally considered a grand sacrifice to the spirits and deities...) and elaborate funeral ceremonies are to impress the living, the man said, they mean nothing to the one who is already gone.

He patted me on the shoulder again, and repeatedly, in a warm, heart-touching way that only Taiwanese people know how, he asked me to go back to his shop sometime for tea （有銀來泡茶！)