• pigduck
• Dec 31,2007
• In: Family, Spiritual Affairs

In Loving Memory - 2 Months 29 Days

I dreamt of my father last night talking to his brother who was taunting him. In my dream, my father was dead… and he was talking to his brother and telling him that he shouldn’t be so silly to think that just because he was dead, things would be different business wise. My father was saying something along the lines of, “Don’t think you’re so smart… that won’t happen…” His brother was saying how he was going to ask for twice as much in a sing-song kiddish manner. And my father was saying that is not possible and will not happen.

Managing grief is not easy. I try not to think of only myself at this time but also at how my mother and sisters feel. I worry some times when they don’t react in a certain way or when they don’t express their sadness. I get anxious if it seems like they have forgotten certain things. I worry then for my family if they may be feeling down and I can’t do anything about it.

From the 22nd - 25th of December, my family (all of us) flew to China to get away for Christmas. We didn’t want to be around to enjoy in the festivities. To us, we had no mood to celebrate because Papa was not around. there was no point in celebrating with our relatives because my father was not around Oddly, the relatives didn’t celebrate but waited for us to come back and have announced that there’ll be a New Years’ party instead. Although my heart feels very uncelebratory at the thought of it, I do not have the heart to say “no, I don’t want to attend” because maybe I am becoming like my father who never wanted to disappoint people. I would like to think that they are having this party at this time because we weren’t around to celebrate during Christmas and maybe we need it? They aren’t letting us escape. Haha. I guess it’s a good thing? I think my father would be quite sad if we didn’t attend because we are such party poopers.

I’ve tried my best over the last few months to be cheerier and more relaxed at parties… I have. Normally, I’m just a sullen character at parties. I’m not sure if people have noticed. What I’m trying to say is, I’m trying to be different because I know that first of all, my father always put up a brave front no matter what he was going through. For example, we celebrated Lantern Festival in Sept (the week before my father passed away) and he got to see his brothers and sisters ,nieces and nephews and he was already quite weak and tired… so I was trying to help him around but he pushed my hand away and wanted to do it himself -  walk, get up … etc etc. I distinctly remembered how he didn’t want assistance. The point is, he put on a brave front so others wouldn’t see how sickly he was. If it was me, trust me, the whole world would know I am sick. Second, not for my father but for my sake… life doesn’t deserve so much negativity… but that’s me trying to be philosophical. I guess it is something I am doing for myself. Maybe I’m trying to attract positive energy myself… that’s what my father would have liked I think.

I’m trying to be more relaxed and cheerier in general. It ain’t easy. I’d rather grit and frown.

You know how people say “I am sure <insert dead person’s name/relation> would have wanted you to be happier and not be upset. I am sure <insert dead person’s name/relation> wouldn’t want you to be sad and would like you to move on? Or some crap like that. I was thinking today how would we know what the dead think right? Naturally as humans who have to continue to live on this place called earth, we’d like to think that once someone is no longer around we can rearrange the rules and come up with our own ideas. It’s only natural for us to do that. So how do we know what the dead person would have liked? Maybe we’d think back on how the person was when they were alive and then draw assumptions from there or we just think this is what they would have liked. What if the dead person actually wants you to think of him/her day and night? Or they don’t want you to move on just yet or they don’t want you to be happy without them? Ok that’s quite scary to think but what if.

When my father was very sick, we were filled with a lot of emotions. Up and down ones, stomach churning ones, lurching falling off the cliff types and we’d have sleepless nights worrying about his condition or what he ate, his many medications and symptoms… we were always trying to find a cure for my father be it temporal for his aches and pains or for his real problem and we’d worry and work ourselves out tirelessly trying our best to serve our father.

Once he passed though, suddenly it seems like nothing matters anymore. How did we ever muster those feelings up? Those feelings of worry and fear…. I shrug at the thought of it not knowing anymore how to stir the emotions up. I even question - did I really feel like that? Now that my father is not around anymore, life can be quite slow and aimless, ambling along as we wonder, well what is acute myeloid leukaemia exactly or the little details about pneumonia or the different types of treatment options? We forget how to treat a simple muscle ache but when my father was sick with muscle pain, we’d come up with all these ointments and medicinal bandages… if he felt nausea, we’d think of ways to alleviate the sickness… but now if you ask me how to alleviate my own nausea, I can’t be bothered… I hate it but I seriously cannot be bothered to do anything about it except moan and groan. When my father was tired and sleepy, we’d worry but now that I am tired and sleepy… I don’t care what it means or if there’s a meaning to begin with. And maybe that’s why life can suddenly seem so empty and meaningless when we’d been pushing ourselves for the whole year to help our father in every way. Now that he’s not here it feels like there’s nothing to do and how did we do it before?

I was reading the news and Benazir Bhutto’s son and husband have taken her place as political party head to lead her party to the elections and I think, “wow, these people have no time to mourn over the loss of their mother and wife. It’s not even been 3 days but they have to come up with press statements and conferences to announce of their next plans”. That must be very numbing for the family and I send my sincere wishes that they will, during this time, find time alone to reflect and to cry for the loss of a woman so dear to them.

Our experiences of grief are so different. Some of us are left with questions. When my father first fell ill, I thought, “Oh no, death sentence.” I had to remind myself too that life is like that… we aren’t dealt perfect cards. I had to remind myself that people die all the time and not only that but we don’t live forever. All of us will have to die some day whether we like it or not. We can’t run away from it. We can run away from most things. If we hate a job, leave it. If I hate a person, move away. But not with dying. Oh no… even Anthony Hopkin’s character in Meet Joe Black, who took Death on a tour of life couldn’t escape dying. And so, it was one of the things I said to myself over and over again.