A Rather Different World

Since 2003, I wrote a monthly column “The World of Lun” for the Evergreen News, a community newspaper of SUCCESS. Lun is my son suffering from severe autism. He was sixteen by then. Till January 2017 the column was stopped after a brain injury accident which also made me unable to work. Since then I have lived on extended disability benefits. It has been eight years and Lun is 38 by now.

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I chose to introduce Lun to the readers because of his developmental disability, e.g. he never talked or conversed, Lun and his family lived a very different life. It was filled with more challenges than sweetness. Yet the sweetness reached deeply.

 

All of a sudden six months ago. Lun’s mother, my beloved wife Victoria passed away, at age 63, within twelve hours after emergency admission to the hospital for an exceptional acute disease. Lun does not know it yet and I dare not to alert him during my weekly visit. I have no idea how much he can comprehend and how he can be comforted.

 

It has been twelve years since my liver transplant. With my birthday passed in November I am 65 years old and am a senior, officially, for retirement.

 

The pace of the past six months was very unusual. It was very compact and slow for the first few days after Victoria’s leave. For two months, my younger son and I were looking back at forty-seven years of togetherness and forty-one years of marriage. Once we managed the new routine without the presence of a wife and a mom, time flies and another four months has passed.

 

Lun’s coming has opened up a very unusual horizon in which we did our very best crossing all forthcoming hurdles. Then my comrade, partner and lover left without a note. “I never thought that you are the one to remain.” as told by my son. “I submit (to the Almighty)” was my response. My heart melts. I cannot compete against heaven, earth and people.

 

I contribute to the community through sharing my unusual life experiences, and to relieve and balance myself.