Friday, April 21, 2017

Barely Coping

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.