Heat

She was an old lady, with wrinkles on her face, deep like scars, on her cheeks and beneath her eyes. She pushed an equally old-looking man, most likely her husband, up the ramp and into the hospital ward. In the sweltering heat, it was a difficult task, and for this old lady with age, it seemed even more so.

Again I was at the hospital. A busy place, with nurses and doctors, with patients old and young, crippled and able bodied, yet invisibly ill inside. It never is a pleasant place to visit, not with the scent of medicine, with the sorrowful faces of patients, and tears of relatives. It was the same hospital where three months ago I lost my dad.

On the way to the hospital, as we walked through an underpass, mum revealed more of dad's last few weeks.

"...I saw him here, but he did not see me. His face was glum, and he was lost in thought. It was the end of January, and I suspect it was the day when he heard that he needed to undergo chemo-therapy. It was the same day when the doctor told me I needed chemo too..."

I imagined how heavy dad's heart must have felt then, how he did not have anyone to share that burden with... or at least, did not want to share that burden with anyone else. I imagined his sad face, his racing thoughts and worries, and how perhaps very afraid he must have been. Perhaps he knew himself then already that this may even mean the end...

For some reason, being home these days, I am often thinking of dad, and missing him. Perhaps it is because I see his portrait everyday, and am reminded by his absence almost constantly by the many things that he used that still lie around the house. And hearing that story today from my mum adds to this sentiment of missing dad.

But at the moment, mum's situation is not much better. Three days of chemo-treatment, and she is now left exhausted and energyless. She has not felt this bad ever before, she says, and cannot eat much, even when I cook things she would normally like to eat.

It is really painful to see... see that a loved one is so weakened and changed by an illness, and to be helpless to alleviate that pain and misery.