1 . In 1990, during a performance of my stage play, I became preoccupied with one particular member of the audience. While everybody else laughed, there she sat, staring at the floor, with her fingers in her ears. I’ll never forget her look of complete discomfort.

That woman was my mother. Despite the fact I’d established myself as a humorist, my mother never found me or my work particularly funny. She was my hardest critic. “Is Drew really that funny?” she’d ask family members.

To make matters worse, the feeling was mutual (相互的): though our social circle swore that she was humorous, I never saw it. My mother was supposedly very funny in her first language, Anishinaabemowin—an Indigenous (原住民的) language, but alas, I didn’t speak it. At family gatherings, when somebody would say something “funny” in Anishinaabemowin, she’d explain it to me. Sometimes the humour translated. Sometimes it didn’t.

For a while I was convinced I would never make her laugh. Then, in 2005, I succeeded. I had published a book called Me Funny. In it were dozens of essays deconstructing Indigenous humour, along with 50 so-called “Indian jokes” to break up the various chapters. (For instance, “Why do Native people hate snow? Because it’s white and all over our land.”) She laughed hard and declared, “Wow, that was funny!”

In 2009, my mother passed away at the age of 77. During the funeral, in the tears, family member after family member got up and recounted things she had done and said over the years. To my surprise, I found myself laughing. Suddenly I remembered a moment from the early ‘90s, when my mother asked me, completely serious, what “owie” meant in French. I struggled to come up with an answer until I spelled it out in my mind: oui (“yes” in English).

More and more stories about her surfaced. We laughed as we remembered her. I couldn’t see my mother’s forest for my own trees. I wish I could have shared those laughs with her while she was alive, but I’m glad I finally made the connection.

As a young boy, I was carefree. Every vacation I looked forward to two things—seeing my grandpa and hearing his wonderful stories. My grandpa was a very good storyteller. He had worked various odd jobs when he was young and wove his adventures and misadventures into fantastic tales. These wonderful tales colored my childhood.

As I grew up, I had to admit that Grandpa’s stories went on a little long, even a little boring and gradually lost their magic. However, not wanting to upset him, my brother and I would sometimes take turns sitting in the living room, listening to grandpa tell his stories.

When my grandpa was approaching 91, he suffered from serious memory-loss. It was kind of what doctors called dementia (痴呆), probably the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Following the doctor’s directions, we moved him into a Sunrise Assisted Living Community, where he could get a better care. After that, grandpa hardly came to our house.

One weekend before my grandpa’s birthday, I came to visit him. Seeing grandpa sitting in his armchair, dull-looking, I was consumed with mixed feelings. I wheeled grandpa to the sunshine in the courtyard, talking to him. He couldn’t express himself clearly and spoke in short bursts, but I listened to him patiently and carefully just as I used to be a little boy.

It was then that I noticed a shadow box with some old and yellowish photos in it. I picked one up, in which my brother, several boys in our neighborhood, and I were playing basketball with grandpa cheering us on twenty years before. My mind flashed back to those beautiful memories. Back then, Grandpa was in good physical condition and we were all wearing basketball jerseys, playing and laughing with abandon. I presented the photo to my grandpa, pointing at each member and reminding him of their names. Incredibly, grandpa could speak out the name of every player. I even caught a soft light in grandpa’s eyes and a smile on his lips.

A bright idea for grandpa’s birthday came to my mind.

Seeing “the same players” playing there, grandpa seemed to have thought of something.

7 . When children do something wrong, parents expect an apology. Children often try to read their parents’ mind or butter up (奉承) their parents by saying, “I’m sorry”. Even though they did not do anything wrong, they will act in that way because they are scared to make their parents angry. Children always look timid (胆小的) because they have been anxious or nervous about being punished by parents.

When parents force them to apologize, they will lose the opportunity to think by themselves why they should apologize or what was wrong. So, how can we make them understand properly what was wrong?

If parents never give children a chance and say something like, “That’s not good” or “Say you’re sorry”, children cannot learn to reflect their behavior. So, the first thing that parents should do is listening to their children, asking questions such as what happened, why they did it. Once children have their parents’ attention and feel at ease, they can easily accept their parents’ words.

Children do not have enough skill to tell good or bad things, therefore, it is necessary for parents to teach them what was wrong. When parents explain what was wrong to children, short and simple words should be used as much as possible. Moreover, it would be more effective to tell children what kind of behavior makes parents feel a certain way. For example, it would be good to express mom’s feelings with something like “When you hit me, mommy will get hurt.” “When you call me stupid, I feel sad.”

In this way, children can understand that they hurt mom or they make her sad, therefore, they will become able to apologize naturally. That would be more understandable for children why their behavior was wrong than being scolded by parents something like “Hitting is not good!” “You cannot say stupid to someone else.”

Many people believe that children are too young to understand what parents say, however, children actually can understand a parents, feeling if parents use simple words and speak calmly. Parents should avoid speaking one-sidedly and always try to listen to children. Talking to each other would be the best way.

8 . Lily used to be a fitness coach and a social media influencer. The number of her followers reached a million just last month. Every day, she would post photos of herself working out, or just posing in workout clothes. She looked superb in these photos.

    1    , they were not one hundred per cent real. Actually, they were taken by a professional photographer. Besides, they were also carefully edited       2    . We know that social media influencers sometimes post their photos for fun, but companies pay them to do so       3    . Lily was no exception. The clothes she was wearing in those photos were sponsored by companies. She was paid to wear them.

Lily was not happy about the photos, though. “I was feeling guilty       4    ,” she said. “I was so ashamed of myself. I couldn't bear living a lie any more. I hope my fans can forgive me.”       5    , she closed her online account.