How far would you go to take care of a loved one? The stories from the Filipino diaspora have become so common because almost any family in the Philippines has experience with it.
This means that a lot of Filipinos know the pain of being away from their loved ones, especially since they value family connections so much.
A migrant family faced a related dilemma when their 96-year-old matriarch ran out of caregivers.
Content creator and musician Chris Punsalan’s family is in Nevada and their grandmother is in the Philippines. The distance is just impossible to overcome and the family considered just sending her to a care home.
It is an American way to ensure quality care but it is not how Filipinos take care of family members, especially the elderly.
It was then that Chris made an admirable decision.
The family had another option and it was Chris’ idea. He decided to uproot his life as a digital content creator based in Nevada and move back to the Philippines to be his grandmother’s fulltime caregiver.
“She took care of me and I would hate to see her go to homecare, which is where I feel most grandparents go in America,” said Chris to the local news network ABS-CBN. “They go to home care because nobody is able to take care of them.”
He never would’ve expected the virality that came after his decision.
While he already had a significant amount of followers, his new content catapulted him to a different kind of popularity.
He uploaded a video summary of his typical day with his grandmother. He posted a montage of the chores he had to do and the conversations they were having.
He was deeply admired by his audience because he carried out his task with pride and love. But it was not as easy as he made it look.
Surprisingly, the physical aspect was not the hardest.
“To see her forget who I am sometimes and for me to have to remind her,” he said to the news outlet, “that’s probably one of the more difficult things because it’s a constant reminder that life is very fragile, and it’s very short.”
Nonetheless, he would always frame his post with a certain level of positivity. He would show how affectionate his grandmother is and how she would always swoon at the memories of her grandchildren.
For Chris, spending time with his grandmother is the greatest reward.
While he himself is away from his family, he says he is still lucky because he gets to be beside his grandmother for as long as time would allow it.
One of the biggest takeaways he has from the experience is to cherish your loved ones. He said that saying life is so short and fragile is such a cliché, but it is only the case because it is true in any context and culture.
Chris hopes that his popularity would inspire other people to express their love for their families and commit some of their time to be with them.
Watch how this young digital creator moved back to his home country to take care of his grandmother.
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