My dad fell down early last month
while he was about to sit down at a restaurant. His back/spine has been hurting
since and he has visited the clinic twice, even a Chinese medical practitioner,
taken various medications, tried a few ointments and pain relief cream and
whatnot but his condition is improving only slightly. It hurts me to see him
suffer and it’s not been an easy time for me either. I don’t want to come
across as complaining, suffice to say that I’ve been shouldering a lot more of
household chores on top of my previous share and like I said, it hasn’t been
easy especially as I’m nursing tennis elbow syndrome for some time myself too.
I’ve been performing special prayers on a daily basis but the relief has been
slow. It isn’t time yet for us to heal. Soon, insyaAllah, please, for I don’t
know how much longer I can stand to watch him suffer.
The worse thing is feeling like my
brothers don’t even care. Sure, I know they’re in Johor and have their families
but surely they can take some time to visit and care for dad? Surely they have
their filial duty to play; they’re the sons after all. Just because I’m single
and seemingly don’t have responsibilities (read: my own family) doesn’t mean
they can wash their hands off their duty. Like they, I have my own life to live
too. I don’t mind taking care of dad and the house but I do wish my brothers
will understand that I have my own life to live too. They don’t call often to
ask how dad is and never ever asked how I’m doing or coping (they hardly wonder
if I’m bearing up but when I go on trips, I feel this unspoken disapproval for
leaving dad behind). Yes, I do feel like I’m being taken for granted. For now,
I just grit my teeth and try to multi-task as much as possible so that I can
tackle all chores without taking too much extra time which is not at all easy
when you live with a messy person. Sometimes I feel like I’m all alone in this
but I refuse to indulge in this thinking often because there’s just so much to
do around the house. Thankfully Akak is around to help
out occasionally.
All these made me wonder how it would
be when I’m old myself too. I don’t have any spouse or child(ren) to help care
for me (presuming that one’s spouse and children will care for one when one is
ill) and I always pray that I won’t be infected with some disease like dengue
or H1N1 or anything worse that requires medium-term hospitalisation or frequent
visits to the doctor because if that happens, what would happen to my dad then?
Who would care for him then? Akak has offered him to stay with her but he
doesn’t want to.
Dad has talked about death a few
times. I hate it when he does that. Yes, I know we are supposed to think about
death because we must prepare for the afterlife, that life in this world is
fleeting and is never meant to be permanent, but I just don’t like it when he
talks about it. I know death is a natural occurrence and that dad is blessed
with a relatively long life so far but I just can’t bear the thought of him
gone. I know I didn’t think I could live if either or both of my parents passed
and even after 6.5 years, I still miss Mummy badly. I’m not naïve to think that
I will have my parents with me all my life, I know death is inevitable and that
I will lose them one day, I know death is natural but somehow I can’t accept or
bear the idea of living without them (and yet Mummy has passed and I’m still
here).
When
it comes to grieving, I don’t think anyone understands what someone else is
going through. You can sympathise and empathise but because you don’t know the
deceased as well or the relationship between someone and the deceased, you can only
at best guess what is going on in the person’s mind. There is no time limit for
grief although society demands it because after all, life still goes on and the
dead would want the living to continue on living. The thing is, the living does
somehow continue to go on living but it’s a different life now. And while I
know people mean good when they say things like the dead has had a good life,
that at least the dead is no longer suffering, they don’t know how much the
world has changed for those left behind who now have to deal with the loss and
living without the deceased.
Time
doesn’t really heal, it just dulls the pain and lets you live with your sadness
and grief. There will always be good days but there will also be bad,
difficult, hard, shitty days. I still cry occasionally, even at work.
I
can’t imagine how I would cope if/when dad goes too.
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