When I think about how hard my parents work to support me I feel both guilt and gratitude.
This first-person account is the experience of Keith Wong, a medical student at the University of Ottawa who wants to become a family doctor. For more information on CBC’s first-person stories, please visit FAQ,
When I think of Barcelona I think of my parents. Not because they have any connection with the city. They are Chinese – not Spanish – and have never been to Spain or even Europe.
But when my friends and I visited Barcelona two years ago, I left with sad thoughts about my parents as an unexpected souvenir.
My friends and I were in a restaurant. Beginning of evening, sleepy flies, music echoing from the radio. We were enjoying the summer holidays after our first year of medical school.
At a nearby table, a middle-aged couple was sharing a slice of cheesecake. The woman’s torn shoes were peeking from beneath her disheveled dress. The man’s fat belly bulged through his faded T-shirt, and his experienced hands touched the graham cracker crumbs from the mustache to his upper lip.
He listened to the woman silently, his eyes crinkling with satisfaction.
This couple reminded me of my parents. Most evenings, he leans in front of the living room TV and eats apple strudels on sale at the superstore.
My parents want to make sure I have enough support to fly high before they last.– Keith Wong
My father brushes the wisps of his bushy mustache, his hands as rough as pastry. My mother sleeps next to him wearing pajamas that she bought probably 20 years ago. His rantings threatened to turn off the TV, so my father turned up the volume, earning him an angry slap to the stomach.
Based on this description, my parents might seem idle in their home in Windsor, Ontario. But I can’t imagine a better way for my dad to wake up in the morning and relax after eight or more hours of assembling car parts. Or, in my mom’s case, after climbing 20,000 stairs to serve drinks in a casino and ask for tips.
support of a family
My mother never finished university, and my father never finished high school. Yet they have supported me and my three sisters through university and postgraduate degrees in pharmacy, education and, in my case, medicine.
My sisters and I often encourage our parents to work less. But they continue their daily toil in part because I, the youngest child, has a year of school left. My parents want to make sure I have enough support to fly high before they last.
In recent years, I have increasingly had thoughts of avenging my parents.
While some of my high school friends started working after university and could now afford to send their parents on trips, I competed fiercely for four more years of med school, where tuition is more than four times that of my undergraduate degree.
Although I know my parents value my education, I often feel responsible for their burnout.
promise of travel
I wish my parents were exploring the world like me and their doppelgangers in Barcelona. Surely, they are more entitled to relax in a Spanish restaurant than I am.
“Once my residency is complete,” I told my parents shortly after returning from my trip, “just name a destination, and I’ll take you there!”
My parents scoffed, but I could tell they would probably accept future offers.
This bold promise assumes that my parents will always be able to explore the world. However, in recent years, my father has developed symptoms that I learned about in my cardiology lectures. My mother’s family doctor has urged her to start new medications.
I worry that when I finally complete my training and am financially able to thank my parents for everything they have done, they will not be able to enjoy the gifts they deserve.
But perhaps I have become addicted to delayed gratification – a common side effect of long medical training.
Years from now grand gestures aren’t the only way I can express love and gratitude to my parents.
During holidays, we hug each other tightly after crossing the distance of 800 kilometers between us. I remember the pattern of sunspots that dotted my mother’s face, the smell of my father’s head and shoulders. I FaceTime them regularly and see their smiling faces after just a ring or two.
I ask how they are doing. We share updates about our lives.
Through these words and gestures, they know that – whether I’m at school or in Spain – I’m thinking about them. And I am grateful.
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