A true sad story

This story has been circulating for some time, and I have thought that it was just a fictitious story.

I met a doctor colleague of mine and while chatting about the change in human behaviour, he told me that this story is true and it was from one of his class mates.

You all must be wondering what this story is about and many of you must have heard of it.

The doctor concerned, let us called him Dr John, saw an old lady one day, limping into his consultation room.

Apparently the old lady had a fall the night before the consultation. She had tripped on something on the floor and fell towards a rose wood chair in the living room, and the force was so great that the right knee was bruised and swollen.

The doctor noticed that the old lady had tears in the eyes and he tried to comfort her by saying that the injury was not major, and the swelling and the bruise as well as the pain would be gone in a couple of weeks. He wondered why an old lady would be on the brink of crying and he asked her whether the pain was really unbearable, in which case he was willing to give her a pain relieving injection.

The old lady answered that she could bear the pain and did not want any jab. So Dr John became even more curious and asked her why she was so upset.

With that , tears starting to roll down and between sobs , she told the doctor that after her fall, her daughter in law came charging towards her, not to help her up and enquired about her injury but rather, screamed at her that the rose wood chair costs a lot of money, and that she better be careful not to ruin the chair.

The doctor was shocked and asked the old lady how was the response of the son. She said that the son was out at that time, and she did not want to tell the son about the behaviour of the daughter-in-law because she did not want them  to start a quarrel over her. She was upset because this was her only son, and she really had no where else to go and she did not want to start a quarrel with the DIL.

I guess this lady’s son and daughter-in-law must be rich to have rose wood set in the living room. Despite their ‘richness’, I would say they have ‘poverty’ in their hearts.  What is material things compared to your own relations? Where are the  filial piety, sympathy and empathy that we pride ourselves as an Eastern Society? We had all these just a generation ago. .

I believe this story’s truthfulness, since I have personally come across   similar stories in my 30 years of medical practice.  Perhaps the old lady should have told the son what happened. Perhaps it is good to have a family discussion to thrash out the whole issue.

OUR  society has evolved into one that is more self-centred and there is certainly less respect to older people (READ my post yesterday on our social behaviour, which was  carried by MT).

In our haste to chase for material comfort, we have often neglected our relationship with our dear ones, and often taking our family for granted. Spiritual aspects are often neglected and perhaps it is also partly  the fault of the parents when they bring up their children.

On the other hands, the younger generations must realise that one day, age is going to catch up with them, and what happened to their parents will one day happen to them. What goes round comes around, and those of us old enough (in our fifties and sixties?) would have witnessed the truth of this saying time and again.

I will tell you another true story which I have personally come across in my patient and which I have given certain advice and the outcome was very much different from this case. I believe that there is still conscience inside our hearts no matter how tainted are our characters … And the next story will sort of confirm this..