Last Sunday I lit the first candle on the advent wreath, like every year. Advent time belongs to my
favourite time of the year. I love the cosiness with friends and families gathered together, I love the
sparkling lights in the Christmas markets, I love the sweet smell of mulled wine and lebkuchen in the
air.
But wait, instead of festive atmosphere, I smell fear, uncertainty and disinfectant the air. Christmas
is only 4 weeks away, the most colourful and splendid time of the year is shadowed by Corona
lockdown.
When I feel sad and helpless, I very often think of my Grandpa. I grew up by my grandparents in
Shanghai during the culture revolution. My Grandpa used to have his own business before the
communist took over the government. During Mao´s culture revolution, he became, victim of the
movement called “purging remnant of capitalist”. All his property was confiscated. The revolutionary
groups quartered the complete ground floor of my grandparent´s house. Whenever I was sad and
frightened with the rude behaviour of these strangers in our house, my grandpa would pull me aside
and told me gently, “everything will be fine again my child, all you need is patience”. Mao´s culture
revolution lasted 10 years, in the end, my whole family survived the nightmare. Six years ago, my
grandpa died at the age of 101. His patience, his calmness especially in difficult times helped him to
succeed numerous tough situations. For me he is the true winner in life.
Are you a patient person? If not, I´m afraid you have a learn process ahead of you and I hope, it
won´t be that painful as the one that I had.
It was a wonderful day in August when I was on my way back home with MTB. I was only about 6 km
away from my home, when a car from driving school appeared in front of me, stop and go, stop and
go. Following this car was a test of my patience. After another kilometre, I finally ran out of patience.
To be able to overtake the car, the only possibility was to jump onto the pavement. It shouldn´t be
an issue for a skilled MTBiker like me. And I jumped so high! The landing of my front wheel was soft
and smooth, but my back wheel disagreed to follow. Suddenly I lost my balance and even worse, I
was not so quick to free my feet out of the clipless pedal. Bang! I hit hard with my left side against
the cement ground. A bloody elbow, a rib fracture and a rotator cuff tear in the shoulder, all that
happened within seconds, as a result of an impatient moment.
There are many uncomfortable situations in life that you can not change. Like being stuck in a traffic
jam or standing in a long queue in super market, or driving behind a car of driving school. 2020 is a
special year that demands a lot of patience from us. It´s not only the covid-19 virus that threatens
us, but the significant side effects that turned our normal life upside down. We are forced to give up
a lot of lovely things that we used to do, keep distance to our dearest ones. It´s hard for me not able
to visit my dad the whole year. But the good news is, the vaccine is coming soon and we can already