Desolance

The pain of losing someone you love is perhaps one which is the hardest to bear. Especially someone as close as your family members. I guess you never really get over that pain. And so I live each day thinking that my mum is away somewhere on holiday; or I am away in another country studying or working. Yes and somehow that faint hope that someday she will be back or that I will return to see her with that warm smile makes it easier to forget. And so this page enshrines the pain I had felt that fateful day when I heard my mum was will… in here, the memories shall live.

June 2000-The day my world fell apart

“Hi dad, how’s everything at home! Miss you guys! My exams are finishing in a couple of weeks … and I was thinking of traveling a week before flying back home”

“…there is something I have to tell you – it’s about mum… well she’s not well. I mean she’s been unwell for a while now but we did not tell you.”

“…Why? How long has this been?”

“..sorry, mum’s in hospital now… she’s been like this for 2 years fighting the disease. It’s cancer and the doctor said she’s got less than 6 months but now, it looks like she may not last another month. Her condition’s worsened..”

“NO! This cannot be? how is that possible? I was back 6 months ago and she was fine. How come no one ever told me…”

“The cancer spread to her spine 3 months ago and she needed an emergency operation or she would have died. Anyway, I am sorry to tell you this now. I did not want your studies to be affected. But she may not last any longer. Please come home…”

“I will be back tomorrow…”

Silence… and for the first time in my life, I cried like a baby and the salty taste of my tears accompanied me as I drifted myself to sleep that night after booking out the first flight back home.

Entry #2

In my mind, I had the perfect family. I had a dad that loved my mum in an old –fashioned sort of way. He never bought her flowers, never romanced her in a way that the younger generations have come to expect. My dad worked hard and built his finances in a prudent sort of way and provided for us all. Every Sunday, the only day that he was off work, he took us all out for dim sum and shopping. My mother brought us all up single handedly without maids and looked after grandmother when she was still with us. Morning marketing for perishables to be used for 3 meals daily, the packing and cleaning up of the 4 – room flat we lived in when we were young and the many other chores associated with the bringing up of 3 kids that came with it. Yet I can still remember her fervently following the next episode of the Cantonese serial she would rent religiously despite the mountain of tasks she undertook.

And I remembered times when they quarreled because of the spoilt brats that we were. How my mother would cry and go to my auntie’s place to sulk. How my dad would sit there and talk to us and tell us to behave in future. And how, dutifully after a few hours, he would scoop us all up and drive us to the place my mum would be in and how we would knock on that door and say sorry. And my mum would never fail to cry when we apologized and my dad would look into her eyes and say “sorry, I did not mean to. Can we go home?”

And my mum would do so without further fuss. I love my family and my dad and mum. They remind me so much of what a happy family is.

But that fateful phone call shattered my world. How could this family I hold so dear suddenly shatter with a phone call from my dad? How could my mum – the perfect wife, perfect mother and perfect person suddenly be lying in the hospital with me 6000 miles away from home?

How could I not have known? Was I too afraid to probe further every time she felt tired or had a backache when I was home? And the question that gnawed me most was – Can she recover?

The next few months the ensued were a period of my life that pained me the most.

It was also the beginning of a change to my perfect family and most of all – my Dad.

The Reunion

The smell of antiseptic and the sterile white environment of the hospital never fails to remind me of that night till today.

My flight landed at 6pm if I still remember correctly and I took a taxi to the hospital directly. The sight that greeted my eyes as I entered the ward brought tears to my eyes. This feeling of pain welling up in my body and rising to my throat and my eyes in waves I cannot rationalize.

There – in front of me, was my mother lying there all helpless, weak and fragile. Tubes sticking out of her nose and drips of glucose and painkillers into her veins. She opened her eyes as I stood there gazing upon her and a smile crossed her face as she saw me.

“Hi mum! How are you feeling?”

“Why are you back? You should have stayed and finished your exams… nice to see you”

“Don’t worry mum, I spoke to my international student officer and took compassionate time off school. They will postpone a few papers I will miss but I will graduate nonetheless if I finish up the outstandings.”

“Good … Good, Doctor says I am getting better and I think I can go home soon”

We did not tell her what the doctor said.

We never told her the fact that it’s terminal and that her time is almost up.

Seeing her in so much fear and so much hope of getting better again pains me. I sat outside the ward room and cried for the longest time that night in a corner where my dad cannot see me. He knew where I was but never did come to check on me. I did not have any answers or solutions for her. For the first time, the enormity and the futility of the situation sunk into my heart. I could not breathe – it felt terrible and there were moments I felt strangely detached from myself in absolute peace. Like a stranger looking from a window outside at me and my life.

The doctor recommended radiation therapy to prolong her life and we moved her back and forth between hospitals for the next few weeks in futile hopes that she might suddenly get better. Every day, our emotions went on a roller-coaster ride very much like the volatility charts of the stock markets.

The Departure

Radiotherapy did little to help her recover. It was prevention of the inevitable as the cursed disease conquered her body bit by bit. After 14 sessions, the doctor told us there was nothing left but to help her live as comfortably as possible in her final moments.

We took her home but the reality of life quickly set in. We had to care for her 24 hours a day but we had a day job to go to and chores to do. Dad hired a maid to care for her and we lived like that for the next 3 months or so. Everyday, he woke up and said morning to her, left for work and in the evenings, rushed back to have dinner and to stay by her side thankful that she was alive. Well I went back to finish my studies with a heavy heart – hating the feeling that I was not there. The 3 months passed by like a surreal chapter in my life.

I came back and started work here but within a month of my return, we had to send her to a hospice as her pain was getting unbearable. I knew this was the beginning of the end. The doctor administered morphine in small doses but soon those doses became so huge they knocked out her senses altogether.

The final moments came when we received a call from the hospice one night saying that my mother had been transferred back to Changi Hospital as she had developed complications and is in comatose state. We rushed there 3am in the morning and that familiar smell and sight of the wards greeted me all over again.

This went on for 2 weeks. My mother was a fighter and she clung on to life every moment. Our relatives came, wept and told us to console her and to tell her that she should go instead of fighting on like this. I refused to utter those words but in my heart, I knew it was true.

I finished work one evening and went for dinner with my girlfriend then. She came and visited her as usual and I sent her to a taxi at around midnight before coming back to spend more time with my mum. And that night – midnight alone with her, I held her hands. Feeling the twitches of her fingers in my palm signaling that she could still feel, I braved tears and had my final conversation with her

“Mum, I know you can hear me… and I know you miss us and cannot bear to leave us. I just want you to know that we have all grown up now. Dad is sad but he wants the best for you too. I hate to say this but I want you to be at peace. I promise you I will take care of this family when you are away. I promise to love Dad and brother and sister…”

I sat with her in silence just feeling her heart beating and her warm palms thinking about how little I have held her or hugged her and left for home.

The hospital called at 1.35am and said that my mother was gone that night…

And this completes my mini trilogy in honor of the memories of my mother. My heart feels heavy and I still feel the pain. Losing someone is never easy especially those close to us. They say time will heal all wounds but somehow, I never really got over it. I hope for those of you with that perfect family I once had – that you would cherish every minute of it. Love like there is no tomorrow. And most importantly, never to take what you have for granted.

And with the end of such pensive moments, the sun shall shine as brightly on a brand new day. Let’s celebrate life, and to live each moment to the fullest.