My friend Ilya from Tokyo AI invited me to help facilitate two events this month - a hackathon today and a workshop next week. I was looking forward to both of them.
I didn’t go to the hackathon, and I’m not going to the workshop either.
Last night I was out with my buddies Tim and Jurmarcus. We were ribbing Tim about this and that when my sister messaged to say - my father had been hospitalized after a stroke back in Perth. It’s serious - they’re talking about end of life stuff. I’m flying back on Sunday.
It took a while for it to sink in. I tried to shake it off.
When I told Ilya, I was still half-planning to tough it out and show up anyway. He told me to stop thinking about it and just book the flights, so I did. Thanks, Ilya, for making this an easy decision. I’m going to try and get a colleague to work with him in my stead for the 17th.
Me and my dad, October 1995
Moments like these are table stakes for those of us who live far from our loved ones. I thought I’d made my peace with it, that I’d be okay. It still hurts.
This isn’t the first time there’s been a scare. A while back my mother came down with severe heatstroke that turned into viral meningitis. I dropped everything to fly back for that, stayed and looked after her for a while. She recovered fully. This… doesn’t feel like that.
Flights with a day’s notice are expensive, but if you’re lucky enough to be able to say “it’s only money” then you should just go, some things you can’t buy more time for.
I’ll be in Perth until the 23rd. Hoping it’s enough time.