CHAPTER 88

Original: 2009-01-07

Rewritten: 2026-09-01

In the blink of an eye, Lun has been living in his group home for almost three years. He is enjoying a comfortable retirement-like life, while the two of us old folks still have to work for at least another ten years or so before we can retire.

After three years at the group home, Lun is living very comfortably, and we are very reassured.

He spent three years in Grade 12—not because of poor academic performance, but simply because the school district provided a childcare service that helped reduce the physical and emotional burden on his parents.

He had no idea what the “golden house” in the books meant, and naturally he never studied hard. Since he was still under school age, he was allowed to remain in school until the end of the semester after turning 19. After that, instead of going through the stage of finding employment and making a living, he skipped directly into group-home living and began enjoying his retirement-like life.

During the early days of his stay, on weekdays we visited him on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We would arrive at the group home after work, around seven o’clock, just as his housemates were preparing to have their evening snack. On Saturdays, we would bring him home to stay for one or two nights, so we actually spent quite a bit of time with him.

Life at the group home was very structured. By nine o’clock in the evening, all the residents were expected to have finished bathing and getting ready for bed and to be in bed. Visitors were welcome between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., but advance notice was required.

From the very beginning of Lun’s stay, the staff knew that bathing was his favourite part of the day. They therefore made special arrangements for him to bathe last, allowing him to enjoy a 30-minute bath in the extra-large bathtub without anyone rushing him. He brought his own water-play toys, mostly the little beach toys that children love.

The evening snack was the prelude to his bath. The staff on the afternoon shift at this group home enjoyed cooking for themselves and preparing healthy foods, such as low-fat cookies, mixed-fruit cakes, oatmeal with fruit jam, and, occasionally in the summer, ice cream.

Lun’s absolute favourite was peanut-butter cookies. Whenever he saw the staff making cookies, he would supervise them, pacing around the kitchen. The staff told us that sometimes, in the blink of an eye, they would discover that Lun had helped himself to several cookies and placed them on his own plate.

Another essential evening snack was instant noodles. By then, the staff had also learned a little Cantonese. They would first say, “師面面” (“eat noodles”), and then ask him to go to the food cupboard, take out a package of noodles himself, and hand it to the staff member.

The staff even imitated Lun by placing the unopened package of instant noodles on the kitchen table and crushing the noodles inside before opening the package and cooking them. Everyone knew that he did not like chewing and preferred to eat his noodles broken into small pieces.

Most of the time, the two of us were also treated to the evening snacks, although instant noodles were, of course, not included.

The group home took exceptionally good care of Lun, providing attentive and thoughtful service in every detail. Toward the end of the year before last, he lost his temper several times, hitting the driver on the minibus and insisting on touching the noses of staff members and housemates inside the group home. The Community Living BC (CLBC) provided emergency funding to arrange for a staff member to take him out for activities during the daytime from Monday to Friday. The purpose was to help him burn off his excess energy and make his daily life more fulfilling.

After a year of living together peacefully, in the blink of an eye, Lun had already been out of high school for three years. One could say he was living a carefree, comfortable retirement-like life, while the two of us old folks still had to continue working for more than another ten years. Only after we retire will we be able to spend more time with him. (The End)

Afterword: Since both of us have high blood pressure, and Lun later developed a somewhat elevated cholesterol level, the group home gradually reduced his intake of instant noodles as a precaution, and successfully replaced them with healthier food.