My Bride has just finished her address to some hundreds at this conference near Seoul, 10,000 km from home and the kids. It will be my turn later.
We’re in the company of a couple of senior Korean doctors. Both are legendary in the Korean medical world.
The younger one, a thin-faced 91-year-old, likes to wear a driver’s cap. He leans to me and tells me I need to make sure My Bride takes enough ginseng. She’s a strong mind, he explains, someone who can do much good. She needs to stay strong for a long time and the ginseng will help with this.
The other, a more-stalky gentleman, also a well-known Korean doctor, is 94. Looks to me like he might be a regular consumer of green tea. He wears a ball bap with “Commander of USS Enterprise” on it.
The younger one, the 91-year-old, tells the group of us (there are maybe a dozen of us around the table, every one of us a Korean except My Bride and me) about his son in Vancouver.
‘My son,’ he says with some peacock pride, ‘has written over 600 musical pieces.’
‘Six hundred,’ someone echoes and the weight of the impression lingers.
Then his senior, the 94-year-old, tells us all that his grandson is the head of surgery at such and such hospital. That also receives some head nodding and genuine appreciation.
‘My son,’ I then say, slowly … ‘is eight years old!’
Everyone loves it.
This is it. Parents are never too old to be proud of their children. Nor are children ever too young to receive the accolades. Even while asleep six time zones away.