by Shen Shi'an, The Buddhist Channel, Oct 16, 2009 Read in Vietnamese

Singapore -- In the poignant but touching story of ‘My Sister’s Keeper’, a young girl realizes that she was conceived specifically to save her older sister’s life. She decides to sue her parents for ‘medical emancipation’ – to reject any further bodily donations, so that she can live her life fully, in a carefree manner. Now that sounds fair, but she does love her sister too.

Why then, does she make such a decision and what would you do if you were their parents? What if her remaining kidney fails after donating one to her sister? A koan with real ethical dilemmas indeed! On the parents’ part, is it unfair favoritism or is it perfectly understandable choicelessness to hope one child can save another despite some risk? Is it conditional or unconditional love? For which child?

 ‘How long?’ A parent asks the doctor on the time left for the older sister. ‘Hard to say.’ Isn’t this the story of our lives? Even if we are in the pink of health, it is also hard to say how long more we have. The mortality of us all is well reflected in a dialogue between two young cancer-stricken lovers. When she vomits as a side effect of chemotherapy, she says, ‘I’m sorry.’ He replies, ‘What are you talking about? Tomorrow it could be me.’ Samsarically, once born, we are all sick and dying ‘lovers’, enemies… or strangers to one another. That we will all die, should the parents be more protective out of love? But what if they become over-protective, such that the child cannot live fully? What is the Middle Path of love? To seek the answer is to walk the Bodhisattva path.

The younger sister believed that most babies are conceived accidentally, and could not understand why her sister had to die. Whether one believes in karma and rebirth or not, surely, life and death is never by chance, but due to the coming together of many complex conditions. When her sister passes away before she could be saved, she realized she wasn’t born to save her, but to experience the love of her sister.