World Affairs And Beyond

In life, we often believe we are nurturing a beautiful garden, unaware that the protective gloves we wear shield us from painful realities. For me, those gloves represented my brother, competitive and favoured by our mother. My younger siblings, whom I once believed to be the tender flowers of our family, turned out to be the thorns, pricking and hurting my brother in ways I could not see. In my quest for peace, I often defended my younger siblings, thinking they were wronged and misunderstood. My brother and I frequently ended up in conflict, driven by my attempts to protect those I thought were innocent. I believed I was fostering harmony and love, but I was blind to the pain my siblings were causing him. Three years ago, when my brother passed away from COVID, the protective gloves were torn away. Without him, I was left exposed, my hands now vulnerable to the very thorns I had once nurtured. The pain of losing him was compounded by the realisation that those same thorns had turne...