Yesterday was my birthday and I spent most of it in my favourite places: bookshops! Lunchtime, I took the boys to MPH at Jaya Jusco to use the 15% voucher which can only be used on a card member's birthdate. I bought Dorling Kindersley's 1000 Inventions & Discoveries. It's more for the boys than for me.
After a quick dinner at the Wangsa Square hawkers and dropping off the boys for their Malay language tuition, David and I drove to KLCC to visit the Times and Kinokuniya book stores. Times had sent a birthday voucher, so I bought Volume 7 of the Encyclopedia of Malaysia series: Early Modern History [1800-1940. David bought a Teach Yourself Jazz book from Kinokuniya and got a lovely big yellow umbrella with the words "Teach Yourself" on it Free. How appropriate: We are homeschoolers, and we teach ourselves!
So it's not just me, but D and the boys too, who love books, nay, are crazy about them, and do not mind spending on them. I give books for birthdays and Christmas most of the time, and we lend them out regularly. We also receive a lot of books as gifts (Sook Fern has given one which I have yet to collect from Si Khoon's later), and as second hand donations - homeschool books, novels etc. which we either use ourselves, give away or loan out.
So, I was thinking that when I go to heaven, Lord, I'll probably be happy to work in some industry to do with books, like a library, a bookshop or a school? Or maybe I could be a scribe or some kind of writer. Here and now, I'm thankful for what the Lord has given me: a husband who loves books and does not stinge on buying good books, boys who have come to love reading and enjoying good books, and homeschooling which allows us to read and learn together and enjoy great literature.
Talking about heaven, last Saturday, we received news that D's father, the boys' 79 year old Kong Kong, has liver cancer. He had been losing weight for some days and Albert, D's younger bro who's a gynae, arranged for him to have a medical checkup that morning. Tomorrow the results from the tests will come out and give a clearer picture of his condition and what may be done. According to Albert, at his advanced age, not much can be done and it can be quite a fast decline in health. My father in law has taken the news calmly apparently and seems prepared to wait for "the eventuality". He hasn't told his wife yet though, and the 4 sons are planning to meet with him and mother and tell her after the second opinion results are confimed tomorrow night. It will mean changes and adjustments have to be made.
When I shared with Jessy, my downstairs homeschool mom and prayer partner, she prayed for healing and asked forgiveness for us saying that "nothing much can be done". Strangely indeed, none of us, including father in law, cried out instinctively for healing from God. Why not? D said that death is also a healing from God. It is a release from the trials of this life, the end of a long hard race...as Paul said, " I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race..." I think that uppermost in all our minds is that God's will be done and His name be glorified, whether in life or death.
Si Khoon, my ever optimistic bro, told me over the phone last night about a 60 something wife of his client who had just overcome serious liver cancer using a new powerful drug. The whole treatment costs over RM80,000. Yuen Pin, D's dentist cousin, whose Dad also had liver cancer, had a different tale. Her Dad decided not to undergo any treatment but let the disease take its course, with only pain killers to ease him. He died within 4 months of the diagnosis. But, YP said, those 4 months were the most precious memories she has of him and the family. There was time and opportunity to say many things left unsaid so long, and to prepare his widow and children for life without him, and for him to prepare himself for life in heaven.
I think that is the grace of God: for Him to give us this time of preparation with Father. It's better than for him to drop dead of a heart attack or of an accident and leave us suddenly. That was what happened last Sunday morning when Lingam got a phone call just as the sermon was about to start, and it turned out his younger brother had just died of a heart attack in the hospital, and he had to leave then.
Today is also the day Linda, a 40 something wife and mother of 2 grown sons, is going through her second course of chemotherapy at the UH to fight the cancer in her liver. Her first course was against the cancer of the colon some time back. This time the drug is more aggressive and powerful, and we're praying that the side effects will be minimal and bearable.
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