‘His platelet count was 16.’ my mother recounted in tears of how my father nearly died from dengue fever while I was away..

That day, when my father sang me a birthday song over the satellite phone, I had sensed something amiss. I felt that he was trying too hard to show that he was happy and I asked whether all was fine and whether my maternal grandmother was all right. Not knowing that my father was already in critical condition in the hospital, awaiting for plasma transfusion..and that my father was in tears as he sang the birthday song for he thought that he would die…

It was only upon my return that my mother told me the family crisis, how my father was admitted to the hospital after 5 days of fever, how my brother had to scramble to source for blood donors after the hospital revealed that they had run out of the platelets..

These are the times that I wonder whether climbing has brought more harm than good to my life..of the times that I failed to be there when my family needed me most..and I am sad about it.