Un-cauterized Pain

It will be one year since Mom passed away on November 4th 2011. One year of feeling out of sorts and incomplete. Being without Mom as long as a year has not lessened the impact of losing her.

It still hurts as if it was just yesterday that I last saw Mom alive. I can still remember vividly the coldness that had seeped into my heart as I watched the nurses take off the life support system from Mom's lifeless body.

I know I've said this before, but I still wonder if this is one wound that time cannot heal or whether not enough time has passed by for the pain to lessen.

I miss Mom so very, very much. Everyday is a struggle to exist on earth with the knowledge that Mom is no longer there to walk beside me as I go through this journey we call life.

I don't know if this pain will always be there in my heart - an open wound that cannot be cauterized.

I know one should let the deceased rest and not bother them with worry of the miseries those left behind are suffering, yet I just can't help but suffer the pain of losing Mom.

Lately I have been posting my conversations with Mom. I haven't really posted anything where I am not speaking directly to Mom; reason being I miss the actual conversations I used to have with her. There just have been so many things that I wanted her to know - made sense to strike conversations with her, instead of eulogizing her all the time.

But today. Today I want to share with the world the pain I've been carrying inside of me for the last 11 months and closing on 12.

I don't know if there'll ever come a time when I think of Mom and this constant ache in my heart won't be there. From what my cousins told me, they got used to talking about their father with just fondness minus the pain. But my uncle has passed away for quite a while. Maybe in years to come, I too will be able to look back and think of Mom simply with happy remembrance and no trace of the pain that is still so very prevalent in my daily thoughts of Mom at this moment in time.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see if time will heal this wound in my heart. Either that or learn to live with a constant ache there.

Conversation With Mom 10

Mommy dear,

Abang went on a 4 days trip to Taman Negara. He left on Tuesday and came back on Friday.

It was an excruciating time for dad and I and were you still alive I know you would have suffered the separation as well. Only Along seemed ok with it. When asked, Along said she had set her mind that Abang will be gone for certain number of days and so she didn't miss him. She said her heart wouldn't be able to take it if she is missing boy on top of missing you and Phil.

I don't know about Along. She confounds me sometime.

But I did miss Abang a lot. It's not like missing you though, because I know I'll see Abang again, unlike missing you where being able to see you again would come only when death claims me too.

I'm having this conversation with you to share Abang's trip with you. I know you would want to be kept up to date on what's going on around here. Abang had a wonderful time. He said the experience that trip gave him was AWESOME.

Abang and his friends cooking in Taman Negara

You would have been so proud of him Mom. He said his friends commented on how lucky they were that Abang was on that trip because Abang was always so helpful and dependable. 

He is so big now Mom. So grown up at 16. I wish you could see him now. Your little boy is now a very mature young man. He did a lot of growing up in the year since you've been gone.

I know I've told you this before, but Abang is really affected by your death. He misses you so much. But like in one of  my earlier post, he is so afraid that he'd forget you. I assured him, he might forget minor things sometimes, but he'll never forget the important things - like how much you loved him and want him to grow up into a respectable man.

Well Mom, you'd be so proud of him now. He is a kind and considerate teenager. He is ever so polite and courteous. Everything you raises him up to be. I want to share with you a picture of him looking so happy on his trip.

Abang, sitting in the river in Taman Negara

Doesn't he look so happy Mom? There are not a lot of moments when he is truly happy nowadays. More often than not at home he is brooding and thinking dark thoughts. But I'll not tell you about his unhappy thoughts. I just wanted to share with you how happy he was during that trip and how I know that despite missing him, you too would be so pleased to know that he had a wonderful time during his trip.

I'll leave you now Mom and will talk again when I have more to say to you. In the meantime R.I.P.

Conversation With Mom 9

Mommy love,

I had to go to the emergency department at Hospital Serdang yesterday because I was feeling so cold earlier in the day.

Going there brought back memories how we brought you to the same hospital by ambulance only to never see you come out.

I kept thinking, me being the drama queen that I am, that what if fate repeats itself and it'll be me who is admitted into the hospital and this time it'll be me who wouldn't leave the hospital alive.

I know it was highly irrational of me, but I couldn't help but think of the day we brought you to the emergency department and it turns into a 46 days stay at the hospital until you passed away.

It hits Along harder than it hit me, the remembrance of the last time we were at the same emergency department. She told me while she was waiting for me to finish having fluids put into me she had a crying jag, thinking of that fateful day when your fate was sealed.

Mommy, I am lucky that nothing is seriously wrong with me other than having contracted the dengue fever. It hurts and I am uncomfortable, but it's nothing life threatening. The nurse told me after I asked her if I have dengue fever that I only have a mild case of it and that it is not the serious kind. The doctor didn't tell me anything other than to come back today to check my platelet count again and to come in if symptoms persist so they can administer the fluids again.

I hurt like nobody's business, but I am not on my death bed. Which is good, because I have barely lived my life. There are still things I want to achieve and accomplish on this earth.

Mommy, I have to admit while I was waiting to see the doctor that the irrational part of me worried that there might have been something seriously wrong with me and that I just might meet you sooner than I think, but although I miss you terribly and would love to be by your side again, I am still so very glad that I am not at death's door.

For now, I'll just have to keep writing this blog and keep having conversation with you to ease the pain of missing you.

I know you would be glad that nothing is seriously wrong with me and I know you would want me to celebrate life for as long as I can. I live now in your memory Mom. I'm trying to accomplish all the things you dreamed for me and want me to achieve.

Like when you were ill you kept asking Along and I if we were married yet and we had to disappoint you and tell you we are still unmarried. Well, Along will fulfill your lifelong dream of having one of your children married. She's getting married to Phil sometime late next year. You know Phil Mom. You met him once and he came to your grave once on your 100th day of being gone although he didn't stay long by your grave because the ants there got him.

He is a wonderful man and you'll be glad to know Along has find the love of her life after years of swearing off men.

As for me, I am still single and very much unattached. I would love very much to find someone to love and fulfill your dream for me as well, but as of yet I haven't met anyone. It's hard to meet anyone when I don't go out anywhere. But I know you'll be praying for my happiness from wherever you are now.

Well Mommy, I've said all I feel like saying at the moment so I'll leave you now for the time-being to have you R.I.P.

I miss you and I love you always

Conversation With Mom 8

Hello Mommy,

It's an hour before dawn and I've been up all night. Was up reading until 3.40 then came down and mess around with the computer.

I have been meaning to write a post here for days but just didn't know what to write.

Right now though, I feel like having a conversation with you, so here we are.

I wonder how you are doing. Are you all right wherever you are now? Are you cognizant to the fact that you are no longer alive or are you in some sort of limbo? Despite being taught religion since I was in primary school up to all the way until I finished secondary school, I don't actually know what happened to those who have moved on.

I know there's an afterlife. But that comes once the end of days comes and judgement time arrives for who is naughty or nice and who'd end up in heaven or hell. But in the mean time, what happens when you die? Where do your soul go to? What happens to the dead? What happened to you Mom?

I wish I know for sure that you are all right. That if you are stuck in your grave and being questioned by the two angels, that your grave is roomy and comfy and that you don't suffer the punishment found inside that 6 feet hole and that you could answer all the questions Mungkar and Nangkir would pose for you.

I don't know what got me in this train of thought, but the other day I had a dream about you. And in it I just realised you had moved on and I was crying in the dream. I don't know if I was crying outside in my sleep though.

I just had this worrisome thought that you aren't doing well in the after life because I am here crying for you. They say the tears and cries of the living weighs heavily on the spirit of those who have moved on.

Do I pain you with my sorrow mom? Do my missing you causes you grief in the hereafter?

I can't help being sad all the time Mom. I think of all the things that we had done together while you were still alive and I can't help but yearn to have all those experiences back in my life.

I miss you. I say this practically every time I have a conversation with you, but it remains as true as the first time I said it. It never changes. I miss you all the time.

I see how sad everyone in the family is since you've been gone.

Nothing has been the same since you return to the Almighty.

Dad is more sensitive now. He gets touchy at the slightest provocation. Sometimes silly thing like responding to his calls a little bit later and he feels like he's all alone and that no one cares for him.

And then there's Abang. He keeps saying how he only had 15 measly years with you where as Along and I had you for more than 3 decades.

And Along of course. She cries for you all the time. It gets worse during that time of the month when her PMS is acting up. The slightest thing will set her off. And late at night when she is in pain she cries out for you in remembrance of all those times in the past when you would be about the only one who would get up and soothe her aching body with your gentle massages.

And me.

Your little girl who is now so lost without you even though she's an adult of 32 years of age.

I need you still mom. If only for the companionship that you gave me. The easy camaraderie we shared. The secrets and dreams I would share with you and only you. The doubts, insecurities and worries that seems to wash away after a good heart-to-heart with you.

It's hard mom.

It's almost a year since you left us and it's still hard - going on with life without you.

It is like a constant knife in my heart. Embedded so deep that the wound just keeps on festering.

I miss you Mom. But for tonight, this is all I manage to say to you. Till next time. Take care and R.I.P