May 24, 2010

Emptiness…

Posted in Uncategorized at 2:48 am by alextrg

On the 20th of January 2010, Wednesday 2010, I was having my medial checkup at Country Heights Medical, Sri Kembangan.

Around 11 something as I was waiting to collect my medical result, Ann, my sister called to confirm that my mum, dad and Alix(eldest sister) will be coming down to Kuala Lumpur to celebrate Chinese New Year. Around 12pm, Ann sent a SMS saying that mom passed away earlier in the morning. As people say, when you receive news like this, your mind goes into a shutdown.

Sent SMS to the club GXCs informing I won’t be doing my classes and what has happened.

Got home and went online to get my tickets to fly back to Kuala Terengganu. Actually purchased KT-Subang instead of Subang-KT. However, the transaction didn’t go through(double checked with my credit card company). So I went through the booking process again, this time double checking that I had selected the correct flight.  And there it was, a notice informing me that I can no longer do the booking for the flight as it was already 5 or 6 hours to the flight. Checked to see if there were still seats available. So ended up ‘taking’ the same flight as my sister.

That was around 2pm. Flight was 8pm.

Sat back for a while and thought about what I needed to do.

A few weeks earlier, my housemate and myself decided to get some furniture to setup the office room. It was scheduled to arrive on Saturday, which obviously I won’t be around. So headed to the AM-Office in Taipan to settle the balance of the payment, and also do some banking.

Would say I ‘drowned’ my emotions by keeping myself busy.

Reached the airport quite early. Ann didn’t arrive yet. At that point I didn’t know if Ann was flying alone, or her family(Phil and Abigail) was coming along. Got myself a camera magazine and just sat at the lobby area of the airport.

I just sat there.

Not knowing how to react. Would I be considered to be a cold hearted soul if I just pretended as if nothing had happened.  Or would I be called over reacting over something that everyone goes through in life, the passing on of a loved one.

I remember when mum got the call about grandpa passing away. Took a bus down with her to Taiping for the funeral. Come to think of it, I wonder is the family picture we took then.

Although I checked in together with my sister and her family, our seats were scattered.

The flight felt extra long.

We got picked up by an uncle who was close to the family. Alix let him use her car which was recently bought.

I can’t remember his name, but the last time I saw him, was during Christmas when he conducted the church service. He handed out paper clips which he found at a bookstore in KL, in the shape of a fish and a cross. In fact, that was the last church service I attended with mum.

The service was held at a funeral parlour owned by the Hokkien Association. It’s actually just behind the chinese stir fry restaurant my family likes to go to. My favourite meal from there is the ‘chai boi’. Mum makes her own recipe of the ‘chai boi’ which I never learned.

In Kuala Terengganu, there is no embalming services available. So by the time I saw mum, she had already started to display signs(ie bloating).

Alix didn’t look too good.

I decided to stay the night at the funeral home.

After everyone had left, the uncle who sells ‘kon lo noodles’ came by, and so did the aunty from the ‘stir fry’ shop.  Mum had helped the uncle and aunty when their kids were born while she was  working in the maternity ward at the hospital there. They heard about mum’s passing away from hearsay.  The aunty saw the crowd at the funeral parlour but didn’t know who had passed away. People around town apparently were talking about her passing on.

Language was a little barrier between myself and them. They spoke in Hokkien, which I can barely speak now, but can still understand the basics.

It rained that night. Which also lead to mosquitos.

Didn’t really get much sleep, if any at all.

Chatted with mum abit.

Mum’s brothers, ‘jiku’ and ‘tuaku’ came down the next day. Apparently they took a wrong turn and ended up heading towards Kuantan.Can’t blame them, as there is a junction on the way back to Kuala Terengganu, that has a fork in the road, and both sides read Kuala Terengganu.

Ann’s in-laws came as well.

I saw many familiar faces, mainly from my childhood.

There was in total 3 church services held I think. The most memorable one I would say is when we had people from 5 different churches all seated together.

Neither of us siblings wanted to stand up and say anything, as we didn’t think we would hold up well. Then as the service was about to end, Alix suddenly decided to do it.

Now I wish we had recorded it, but I guess our memories will have to do.

Alix quit her job not long before mum passed away. Now Alix isn’t exactly what you can say a religious person. In fact I think she’s the least religious one among the 3 of us siblings. But, in her words, she felt God had laid down the plan for her to quit her job, get a new car so mum can enjoy it, help mum get new furniture(which wasn’t even a month old when she passed away). In a way, perhaps it was some mystical hand at work. As since Alix wasn’t working, she was at home when mom passed away in her sleep. Dad was in the room with mom, not realising that she had passed away. The Family Planning Association(where she works) called up because she didn’t turn up for work. Dad had latched the door lock from the inside. Not sure of the exact details, but from what I have heard, Alex had to coax dad to open the door.  Dad has a medical condition, short term memory loss. Alzheimer. Dementia. Nobody knows. But my dad has been looking at my mum and thinking that she is grandma(his mum) for a few years already. Even at the funeral service, he pointed to mum’s picture, and said ‘Ah Ma’ which means grandma. Alix has a theory that because of his memory problem, and also the shock of mum passing away, his memory has gone back in time.

Basically, a common conversation in the Lee household over the few days.

Dad : Why did god take away ‘ah ma’.

Me/Alix : It was not ‘ah ma’. ‘Ah ma’ passed away 20 years ago. Your wife is the one who passed away.

And we end up explaining it, he gets emotional. And then within a few minutes, the same thing again.

One thing though, initially he would forget faster, but after a while, he started to remmeber that someone had passed away, and who was it. It was as if his brain was starting to get stimulated again. When mum was alive, he would always just sleep all day long. And only wake up to have his meals, probably watch some television.  Now he’s awake most of the time. Which I think is better for him.

Mum always said when she passes on, she would like to be cremated. So that’s what we did. Learned something about the cremation process. Now, we didn’t have those fancy crematoriums like in KL. This was the traditional type. And it wasn’t in KT. I think we had to take a 3-4 hour drive there.

In cremation, the human bones doesn’t turn to ash. Even in modern cremation process, you will be left with bones. As inhumane it may sound, modern cremation actuallygrind the bones after the cremation.

The church pastor didn’t know that either. So I was thinking about how many other people who proably had the assumption that the urn they had received contained the ashes, but in fact were bones instead.

You know how people always say kids can see things we don’t. Somehow when we arrived at the funeral parlour to bring mums’ ashes(bones) to scatter in the river, my niece, Abigail suddenly didn’t want to go into the funeral parlour. She just turned away and was reluctant to go in.

Most memorable scene when we scattered her remains was Alix literally just dropping the urn into the river, splashing the pastor and my dad’s sister. Alix response was “Mom got excited to go, she can now swim”(in Christianity, it is believed that when you leave this physical body, all your health problems will be healed).

24th May 2010.

Initially I wasn’t sure if I wanted to post this entry. It has been sitting in my draft folder since February.

It’s been 4 months since mom passed away. I’m still not over it. Don’t know if I’ll ever be over it.

Mothers day was just a few weeks ago. It was also my dads’ birthday. Spend Saturday evening holding my laptop with my mum’s picture on display. Even now, just thinking about her makes me want to break down. It’s the strange bond that you have with a loved one, that even though you don’t cling to them like glu, but just their presence makes a difference.

Spend mother’s day celebrating my dad’s birthday at my cousins’. Dad wasn’t sure as to what was happening, ie he didn’t remember it’s his birthday. He looked at his watch when we lit the candles for him. And going like ‘huh?’.

I think dad’s memory of me is starting to fade. Not sure if he still remembers who I am as he didn’t say a word to me.  Am not even sure if he see’s my sis Alix as Alix or has he gone back to ‘it’s his mum’.

Last few weeks I would say I’ve been having emotional battles inside. Trying to pretend I’m feeling fine around friends and colleagues. Sometimes I’m not sure if what I am feeling is real, or just my mind playing tricks with me. If that makes any sense at all.

Am considering seeking the help of a councellor to see if I can find a way to get over this.

But I know that seeing a councellor means you have to tell your story. And whenever I tell my story, it hurts too much. People always say you will feel better after expressing your deepest thoughts, but why is it that after each time I do it, I feel even more devastated. Why. WHY!

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