To say I’m a little traumatized would be such an understatement.
People who leave me are often brutually yanked away.
After my last entry, my DIL (dangerously ill list) patient collapsed. Sadly, my friend didn’t survive. I seek solace only in the fact that he was able to spend his last breaths comforted by his mother and a selfless wife whom stood by him through it all.
Cheryl, J’s not good
I’ll call the doctor
(SpO2 : 80% and falling)
You wait here.. I’ll take his parameters.
Is he dead?
(BP unreadable)
Fats, get the E trolley, hook up the cardiac leads. 100%Face Mask please..!
(His wife touches my arm, I can almost feel her pain travel into me)
Don’t resuscitate him. Let him go.
(Our eyes lock) You sure?
His mother panics
J’s gone..!
(asystole)
I stood there as the alarms sounded and the room started to spin, waiting only to print evidence of his retired heart.
His wife shared quite a chunk of her own life with me during J's final days. We talked about our love to roam the world. Of how she fell in love with Paris and trekked across America, then up through Canada, of Europe and the Middle East. Of how she lived on bread and instant noodles dredged across the globe so those eyes could be continued to be filled with the amazement of an unknown land.
Her eyes twinkled as she told me how she yearned to bring her daughter to Disneyland; her hands slapping my thigh as she recalled her adventures with fond excitement.
We sat there, two former strangers with paths suddenly crossed. In the dark room, illuminated only by the soft glow of flickering lights given off the machinery dotting her husband's little room. She carefully imparted her experience, so that maybe, one day, I too, could walk the same path.
I tell you Cheryl, they were wonderful times.
I hope you can see all that I have.
We talked about matters that didn’t concern what was confined within the four hospital walls and reminisced about a life that could never be rewound.
A detached reality that we were just more then happy to embrace.
You peranakan?
Yeah.. How did you guess?
Can see lah
My grandma only wore her Kebaya, and she was so anal about making her rempah from scratch
As the days stretched into weeks, I watched J deteriorate right before my eyes. I watched him sink into depression as the reality of the severity of his illness sunk in. I watched the drama that often erupted outside his room. I watched.
But maybe these open eyes would have rather been closed.
J used to ask me what was my ambition in life. Every night, we would repeat the same topic and without hesitation, I would eagerly reply, “to be rich of course!” I knew it irked him to bits. Thus, he would begin to lecture me on how money was not omnipotent. Obviously, I knew it wasn’t. But then again, I often say things I don’t mean just to illicit an emotion or incite a reaction.
It’s was just my way of keeping the conversation rolling.
I packed him as the tears rolled uncontrollably. Refusing to allow the tears to escape in front of his wife, remembering she shoulders a burden far greater than mine.
I kept my right to mourn in private.
My heart goes out to the young children he left behind. A widow and a orphans in the blink of an eye. Perhaps he’s setting her free. Free to return to her roots and find herself again.
Perhaps.
As these tears continue to flow, I remember, God only allows what He knows you can bear.
****************
I wish you every peace in your journey J.
And I’ll be praying for you and your family.
The flesh may decay, but memories, they live on forever.
"God loves dada very much,
so He wants to take him to live in Heaven"
(J's wife to her child)
Rest in peace.
