The article tells the story of a migrant Filipino family who faced a dilemma when their 96-year-old matriarch ran out of caregivers. Content creator and musician Chris Punsalan’s family is based in Nevada, while their grandmother is in the Philippines.
Due to the distance between them, the family considered just sending their grandmother to a care home, an American way to ensure quality care. However, this was not how Filipinos take care of family members, especially the elderly. So, Chris made an admirable decision to uproot his life as a digital content creator and move back to the Philippines to be his grandmother’s full-time caregiver.
In an interview with local news network ABS-CBN, Chris said, “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. They go to home care because nobody is able to take care of them.” Chris never 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.
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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.
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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.”
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Nonetheless, he would always frame his post with a certain level of positivity, showing how affectionate his grandmother is and how she would always swoon at the memories of her grandchildren.
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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.
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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.
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The article ends by encouraging readers to watch Chris’s inspiring story of moving back to his home country to take care of his grandmother.