Never Forgotten

I am afraid that I'm forgetting Mom. As days, weeks and months go by I'm fearing that bit by bit the memories I have of Mom will fade away.

Like today, for the life of me, I cannot remember mom's drink preference if we go out to a mamak stall (coffee shop). I know it's a trivial thing to want to remember, but it's the little little things that made up who mom was.

What if after years go by I'd start to forget the essential things and factoids about Mom and what made her who she was.

I'm not alone in this. My little brother, Abang, he worries that sometimes he doesn't think about mom anymore.

What if one day I wake up and it was as if mom never was.

This is my fear now. Something I am acutely terrified off.

I don't ever want to forget Mom. It's bad enough that she is no longer around, but it'll be worse if those who loved her lose all sense of who she had been.

This is another reason why I'm keeping this blog. To write things, memories about mom, so in case I EVER heaven forbids, forgets what made Mom who she was, I'd have these postings as reminders.

Just to write certain things about mom, she loved watermelon juice, cakes on her birthdays were always something she looked forward to and she would always be so touched if we bring her back some things from whatever outings we went to that she didn't go along with.

She loved red roses and for her hantaran (dowry) on her wedding day she asked from my dad 77 red roses.

She was gentle and kind and seldom lost her temper, which did not mean that she didn't have one. It just take a lot to get her really angry. My elder sister would testify that she at her stubborn best would sometimes meet the angry Tiger (mom was born in the year of the Tiger) mom could be.

But loving. That's the most salient thing about mom. Above all she was such a loving individual. Her heart had a tremendous capacity for love.

Oh, and mom never holds grudges. That just wasn't the kind of person she was.

Oh, mom, how I miss you.

R.I.P. Mom

Conversation with Mom

Mommy,

I miss you. Wish you were still here so I can share with you my worries and my thoughts. You were my constant companion and now that you are gone there is no one I can really talk to.

There is something weighing on my mind. It's about Along. She's been depressed because she is missing Phil so bad. You met Phil mom. Just that one time. The first time he came you didn't see him. The second time was when Along introduced you to him. By the third time he came, he visited you at your grave.

The thing is Mom, Along and he are planning to get married. Just that it's taking longer than along expected. The miles apart and missing him is killing her. Simple Plan's latest song 'Jet Lag' describes how she feels perfectly. I shared the song with sis and she cried.

She's been crying a lot lately.

It's troubling mom. And I know she's missing you along with missing Phil.

She regrets that she couldn't fulfill your desperate wish for her to get married when you were alive.

Mom, so many things I wish I could still share with you, so many things about you that I still sorely miss.

I know when you were alive I dreaded it every time you wanted me to pull your grey hair, and more often than not, I would refuse your request, but now I would give anything to just hear you say, "Adik, cabut uban mommy, (Adik, pull my grey hairs)".

And I miss preparing meals with you. Cooking now is a solitary task that I have undertaken fully. There's no more you to keep me company and supervise me cooking. No more you to refer to when I have doubt about what goes in what.

Mom, I miss you. So very much.

Next week the fasting month begins. The first one I'm facing without you. Sahur (early morning meal before fasting begin, taken at pre-dawn) won't be the same without you to make sure everyone gets up and have their meal. This year it will be my duty to ensure that there's food on the table for sahur every day.

And than after the fasting month, will be Eid. And we will only be able to say a prayer at your grave. There will no longer be a chance for us to kneel at your feet and ask you for forgiveness. This year that ceremony will only be with one part of a full set of parents. I guess I'll have to do my apologies at your grave.

Oh mom, how life's change since you've been gone.

You were a crucial part of our lives and now you are just gone and we are left with an emptiness that can't be filled.

R.I.P Mom

Q & A With Mom

There was one rhetorical questions that I often times posed to mom. I would ask her "What will become of me Mom?"

Mom's standard answer would be, "You'll be all right."

Oh, how I miss mom's confident assurance. It will always make me feel better somehow. At moments of doubts when life wasn't going the way I plan or even at moments of boredom contemplating on a future of more of the same, mom's assuring affirmation that my life will turn out all right will always settle my disquiet.

Mom's comforting words were not all that I've lost when mom passed away. For some semblance of what I feel that I've lost I've added below the eulogy I wrote for mom right after we buried her on November 5th 2010 at 1.15 pm:

"Mummy love, your pain has ended for which I am eternally grateful, but mine has just begun. How do I define the emptiness you left behind? My best friend, my confidant, the place I run to when there's no where else to hide, my shelter from storm; how many other innumerable ways can I describe to you for which I have lost today. Mummy love, I know I trouble your spirit with my tears, forgive me for adding to the pain you have already endured while on this earthly plains, but mummy love, who will I turn to now when no one else can cure my pain? You were the answer to every question I ever dared ask and now I know the answer to the biggest mystery of all, how can one hurt so much simply from loving someone without any boundaries: the answer lies in the very nature of that love itself, and know that my love for you is limitless as my insurmountable pain will attest to that fact."

I still feel the same way I did back then. There is nothing on this earth that can cover the gaping whole in my heart left after mom moved on.

People say time heal all wounds. I don't know whether not enough time has passes or whether this is one wound that time cannot heal.

The Night Mom Passed Away

Along and Abang at the hospital on the night mom passed away.

Mom passed away on Thursday night, just 12 minutes shy of midnight.

I still recall the jarring phone call from my big sis Along. She said "Mommy dah tak ada. (Mom is gone)" I remember waking everyone from sleep. I remember the bewilderment and confusion in my little brother, Abang's face as he was jarred from sleep.

But in truth, I was expecting that call that night, which explains why I was still awake at that hour.

The whole day prior to that fateful call, mom's blood pressure keep spiraling downwards.

40 minutes before Along's call came in informing me that mom has passed away I called Along and asked her what Mom's blood pressure reading was. In tears, Along told me that it was 4o/20.

I knew it wouldn't be long before mom would be gone.

Still even expecting her death, as we were all then, didn't make it any less a shock and heartbreak.

I still remember the journey to the hospital. Dad was on the phone with his good friend Uncle Johan desperately asking for strength and support in that dark hour.

Uncle Johan didn't disappoint. He straight away told dad that he was on his way to the hospital and that he would make every arrangement necessary for mom's funeral preparations.

We arrived at the hospital some half an hour after the phone call from sis. We told the guard on duty that we were headed up because there was a kematian (death).

We went into the ward and saw Along standing by the window, silent and stoic even through her noiseless tears. The drapes were closed to Mom's cubicle as two nurses were removing the life support system which had previously been keeping mom alive from four days ago, on that Monday when Mom had cease to give any response.

Truth is, the doctors had had Along sign a death in line form acknowledging that the doctors had informed the next of kin of mom's imminent demise.

But, we were still hoping for a miracle. Partly because we really weren't ready to say goodbye to mom and partly because throughout Mom's 46 days in the hospital, the doctors had been signing mom's death warrant every chance they had.

Who would have thought that a fall in the kitchen could lead to mom being riled with infections, so much so that her cause of death was written as 'sepsis with multiple organ failure'.

What a rush of memory I'm experiencing as I rehash the night that an angel left this earth to return to the Almighty.

All that's left now are memories; the main reason why I created this blog. To immortalize mom in cyberspace. Till the next time.

R.I.P. Mom.

Mom's Dishes

Everyone in life has a god-given talent. Some can sing, some can write, some are good with numbers... you get the idea. Mom's God-given talent was she was an incredible cook. She can take the simplest ingredient and make them into something so unbelievably scrumptious.

Mom's legacy to those left behind was the pleasure she made other's feel after sampling her cooking.

A cousin second time remove said when she met me at the hospital while visiting Mom last year, that her family still kept Mom's handwritten recipe of the delectable Madelines that Mom was famous for when she was in her early twenties.

Mom used to bake a lot of desert type things. She was a desert queen. But later in life, she kind of grew tired of making those deserts, she just kept her cooking to the savory daily dish.

My most favorite Mom dish is Nasi Minyak with Rendang Daging. I thank to heavens that I learned how to cook Mom's signature dish before she passed away.

Regretfully, there are scores other recipes that only Mom knows how to make that I didn't get to inherit from her. I always figured that I still had a lot of time to learn them from now.

How was I to know that time would run short on Mom and that I will never get the opportunity to learn how to make ikan sarak, kerabu paku, karipap, to name but a few of the dishes that Mom was a master of.

Regret. It's a useless thing that serves no purpose other than to make you feel miserable. Yet that is how I feel. Regret at the opportunity lost to learn all of Mom's culinary tricks.

My only solace is in the knowledge that at least I've learned the recipe to my most favorite Mom's specialty dish.

Hospital Trips With Mom

I don't have a picture for this memory because it happened a long time ago and what physical photo I have left of those time are long gone. But the memories are as fresh as when it actually happened.

My most memorable moments with mom happened the year I was 10. I had UTI back then and needed to visit the hospital every month. Once a month, every one Wednesday, Mom and I would take the bus from Chenor to Temerluh and then another bus from Temerluh to Kuantan where the hospital was.

It was my special time with Mom. We would go to Kuantan early in the morning to get to my appointment and it was a treat for me. You would think I would dread the hospital visits, but to me it was a time spend with mom just by myself and it was a day off from school and Mom would always either treat me to a lunch at KFC or A&W.

And whatever new toy or prize from those fast food restaurant will be mine for the asking.

I loved those few months when I had to go back and forth to the hospitals because it was a wonderful time spend away from home where no chores needed to be done and mom was there just to spoil me with her undivided attention.

I still recall those trips to the hospital with fondness and it is something that will never be erased from my memory bank.

Last year it was my turn to go to the hospital for Mom's sake. Looking after her after she was admitted to a normal ward was my responsibility and I was glad to look after her, even though it was emotionally draining watching Mom slip away from my grasp bit by tiny bit.

Speaking of hospitals, it would seem that between Mom and I we have seen a lifetime's worth of hospital. During her life Mom too has been in and out of hospitals, the last trip to the hospital being the most serious and fatal.

Hospitals now bring a different meaning to me. It is no longer a nice field trip with mom where at the end of the day I'll get a KFC treat. It is now the place where I lost Mom. The horror of losing the one you love is what marks hospitals for me nowadays.

I guess I will never think of hospital now without thinking that there was the last place where I saw Mom alive.

From joyful childhood trips to regulate a rather non-threatening aillment to heartbreaking sorrow of watching Mom passed away, hospitals have always been a mainstay in my life and I hope I won't grow an aversion to it because of what happened to Mom.

Missing Mom

It is close to nine months since mom returned home to the Almighty. Nine months of adjusting to life without mom. Nine months of trying to accept that mom is no longer around.

I look at this picture of my lil brother, Abang with Mom and a knife twists in my heart, a sharp reminder that I will never see Abang being affectionate with mom again.

No more will I see mom smile whenever boy does something adorable or sweet that would warrant that special smile from mom.

I created this blog today, because I find I still have so much to share with the world about Mom and about losing her and how my family and I are dealing with the lost of an angel on earth; my own sweet Mom.

I know most everyone in this world who had been fortunate enough to have been born to a loving and nurturing mom would say the same, that they love their mom and their mom is the best in the world.

Well I'm saying it here, I love my mom and she is the best mom anyone could have had and losing her left a gaping whole in my heart that no amount of time is going to heal.

Mom, I love you and I miss you.

There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of you.

You were the sun, stars and moon in my sky and without you to illuminate my life now it is really hard to see the way.

I know you are off in a better place now, but I can't help but wish you were still here.

I love you Mom.

And I miss you. So very, very much.