Clothes

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I almost cried. It was harder than I thought, and made even harder due to the fatigue I was feeling from the jetlag.

It was so easy the other day to ask mum about what dresses she likes and what she'd like to wear. But rummaging through her wardrobe hit me hard, even though there were two aunties next to me and helping me choose. I knew best what mum likes and what looks good on her. And I needed to choose four outfits for her. One would be bagged and I would have to take with me to the hospital clandestinely. It will only be opened after she passes...

I took out that dress, I knew which one exactly. She wore it first in the summer of 2003, almost a decade ago to attend brother's graduation in London. A black dress with beautiful green embroidery around the waist, to which she liked to add a colourful cape to make brighten the entire attire. She wore it last last year to attend the wedding of her best friend's daughter.
She looks so young and elegant in that dress. The next time she wears it, she will have stopped breathing...

I stroked the dress, felt the soft fabric and tried to contain my emotions. It is hard, so very hard to know next time I see this very dress mum will have gone... How do you deal with that? How can I go about rummaging through her wardrobe without her knowledge, preparing for her demise? All she knows I came home to shower and rest...

But my mind is restless and so very heavy... As heavy as the unusual onslaught of downpour that has caused several deaths and flooding all over the country...

To the dress we added her wig, shoes, socks, and according to tradition we must also prepare a pair of white gloves. more sets of clothes have to be prepared, clothes which will be 'offered' to her by burning them after she passes. But that is for another ritual, which takes place only on the hundredth day of her passing...
How can we even think of that day when mum is still around?

Carefully I bagged the sets of clothes and placed them under mum's bed. One set, the one for mum to change into when that final day comes, I placed into my backpack and planned to sneak it into mum's room.

One more thing done in preparation for that day...