Connection

We chatted briefly, and as one would do, I asked her what she's been doing since graduating. She said nothing much. Then she revealed she lost her dad a month ago. 

Two utter strangers somehow became bonded in experience and life. She spoke of how her dad succumbed to cancer, I told her I lost my mum a year ago. We exchanged words and looks that only one who lost someone dear would ever understand. I felt my eyes moisten as she recounted her story. 

"It's amazing how little people understand..." She agreed with me. They mean well, but they just don't know what to say. What do you say to one who lost a loved one? What does one even say to convey condolences and to share and let the other person know you share your grief? 

We bonded over our experiences, told one another how we have been coping and trying to move on. Exchanged tales of how the end, when the cancer is thriving and the person dying, the sight and suffering is the most painful and difficult to bear. 

In our brief exchange, we exchanged a degree of connection that is rare to be found, and so comforting for us

"Cancer no more"

The last several days have been hectic and terribly exhausting. My bereavement therapy group ended after eight weeks of meetings. It was an emotional affair that left me "shell shocked" and very prone to tears. At work, two conferences made it extremely busy, especially as the person who was supposed to be organizing them did a half-arsed job doing so. In some ways, I felt really useful and "good" about myself, as I was called in at the last minute to take care of several important details, which made my boss pretty pleased (and upset at the person who was supposed to be in charge of it all...) 

But the exhaustion and long working days have taken a toll, as I feel dizzy and so emotional. Dizzy to the extent I feel I could faint easily, emotional to the extent I feel like I could burst out in tears. Strangely though, being busy and distracted also made the time pass quickly. 

Sleep has become a novelty especially needing to get up early every single morning. I dreamt of mum today again, and it has been a while since I last did.

Brother was there at the hospital, I think mum was there too, but in the background. It was a grueling and intense experience, the details of which I can't remember. Brother told me about mum's  condition solemnly. Turns out, though she was in a stable condition, she still needed to undergo treatment. And if the latest treatment did not go well, mum would need to undergo an extremely expensive and difficult treatment. 

I "shocked" awake, and found myself on the verge of tears. I lay in bed for a few moments to gather my thoughts, to let the traumatising images and thoughts sink in and fade away.

"Cancer no more... Cancer no more..." I heard myself saying mentally. I closed my eyes and hugged the teddy bear mum gave me.  "Cancer no more..."

6.50am. Ten minutes before the alarm went off.

Dream: mum...

In that twilight between sleep and being awake, I saw mum vomiting... She was in agony and vomiting.

Horrible, horrible dream.

I woke up and broke out in sweat and panted. 

I'm all alone. Crying all alone now...

Cuckoo's nest

The session ended and we parted ways. There were ten of us in the beginning, all from different walks of life, all brought together by the most human experience of loss and grief. Before we parted, we embraced one another by the door and told one another to be strong before we braved the world outside.

I flew over the cuckoo's nest, and what a long, difficult process it has been. I flew over the cuckoo's nest, and I feel I have come a little further than before.

Cuckoos do not actually build nests. They lay their eggs in the nests of other birds for other birds to incubate. How out of place, a fraud perhaps. How the little cuckoos will grow up in a nest with other strange birds and feel so estranged and different from the rest.

I flew over the cuckoo's nest and now understand "you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy".

“That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me them; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted.”
— Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“I been away a long time.”

Emotional

When is it really over? When did it all end without me knowing? No amount of tears, no amount of pouring out my sorrows and feelings seems to have any effect or elicit any response from the ex. 

How pitiful I was, how foolish I was making myself vulnerable in front of someone again. What did I expect? That things will be like in my dreams and fantasies, that one day someone will turn around and tell me how much I mean to the person and how for as long as I live I will never have to suffer loneliness or feel this unbearable void inside again? 

Am I too sentimental? Too emotional and too attached to the past? I wonder how one could let go so easily. He says he has his way of dealing with things, says he lives every day thinking about me and how things could be. But can I believe that? Can anyone believe when someone chooses one person over another? 

I am tired. So tired from this all. I am so tired of broken dreams, broken promises and being hurt again and again...

I am so tired of sitting alone and crying... Tired of being abandoned

Self reliance

I will be strong. I will be independent. I will not allow myself to be fragile or weak or vulnerable. Be brave I must be, be defensive if I must, but I deserve to have the time and space to recover, I deserve  to have my feelings, ill or bad, turbulent or sad, recognised. 

One day I will stop crying. One day I will feel less empty. One day I'll stand up and be able to say: I survived. I survived and am so glad, so fortunate to be alive.