January Misery

Much that I love welcoming every new year, I always dread one thing. Year after year, January has always been the time when everyone at home comes down with the flu. The cycle normally starts with one of the kids getting it first, which results in the kid having to rest at home for at least two days. Soon, the other kids get it, and there'll be more home-rest, which means the parents have to take turn taking a few days off work. And finally the parents get it, after about two weeks of enduring the kids' misery, sleeping in snatches for a few nights.

It's not the physical pain and fatigue that are unbearable. It's the pain at heart to see the young ones suffer. To see them struggling with the high temperature, and to hear them cough incessantly, straining their little chests every time they do. It's a torture.

I've come to believe that when January is over, everyone will be well again. It always does, year after year. A few more days till January is over now. I can't wait.