New beginning

Sunset, eve of my fifth year in Canada.

Where the sun sets, it rises elsewhere.

A new day is about to begin.

Parents

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"Where do your parents live?"

"They're no longer around..."

"I'm so sorry... You're so young." Then the award silence. One that leaves me wondering whether I should reveal that they died of illness, died of cancer of all the things that can kill you. I'm sure people are curious to know how and when and why. 

I understand why people ask this question. It's a normal thing to ask someone who still looks like a youngster, even though I'm close to thirty now. In fact, the middle aged lady with her husband and daughter said I could be her son's age. I could be indeed. 

It's normal to say "you're so young", and I've heard it so many times since mum died last year. I can understand why people say that. Parents are supposed to live till they're seventy, eighty or even ninety these days. Parents are still supposed to be around when you have a family, when you get married or when you have children. But mine are not, mine are never going to be. And I must life with that. As much as it pains me to be reminded of their absence, I must live with the fact that I am parentless. And it kills me still, even more when inan reminded of it. That absence, that hollow void in my life, the fact that I cannot just pick up the phone and call someone I care and love so much and who loves and cares about me in return..., the fact that I do no have a home, a family, I can go back to, kills, and is eating me up still.

Most difficult is when I see children holding their mum or dad's hand... Or when I see people laugh and sit around a table with their parents. You know how beautiful that sight is? You know how beautiful that experience is to be surrounded by family? You only will realise it when it is gone. You only fully appreciate it when all you can do is look back and reminisce and dream, dream, day dream of one day building your own family with someone you care and love and who cares and loves you back. Oh, that day, that day...

"You're so young..." I know it comes from sympathy, compassion, pity perhaps. But how old are you supposed to be when you should lose your parent? Is there an optimum age or time to lose your parent? I wonder when people will stop saying that... I do wonder when it is when people will no longer ask where my parents are, because it is assumed that they are no longer around. 

Will I even live that long? 

Dream

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Ist t it lovely?

Isn't it wonderful?

Isn't it the most beautiful thing in the world?

Isn't it grand? 

Isn't it swell?

Isn't it all you'd ever hoped for, and more? 

It is, it's all an illusion, all Illusory, all a dream best lived and dreamed when your eyes are closed, when your heart warms with warmth and feelings of familiarity... 

For when  you open your eyes again, it is all gone, all subject to change. 

When you open you eyes again, you realise how alone you are in the world.

"Is she better now?"

A friend of my aunt's came by, and I opened the door. She was so kind to drop by and bring lots of food, knowing that my aunt is returning today with my cousins. 

We chit chatted a bit, she asked how I've been here these few weeks. She said she's heard so much about me, how "good" I am...

"How's your mother? Is she doing better..."

I smiled, and politely replied she is no longer around. Behind that smile, I wanted to cry... 

I know she meant well, and she didnt know. however devastating mum's death is to my world, it's not the end of the world. It's not even newsworthy. 

I closed my eyes a few moments after she left and let the tears flow. Another moment, another moment of me crying quietly on my own. 

With each tear I shed, I grow stronger. 

Don't I?

Heal...

At the station I saw a lady with a bag, on the front of which is written "Love heals..."  I smiled when I saw that. And what a coincidence that the lady was assigned to the see right next to me.

Love heals. Love heals. It does, does it not? Love comes in so many ways, exists in so many forms, and rarely in the way you expect it or want it to be. But however love manifests itself, you should be content with what you have. Shouldn't you?

As mum's life slowly, I resolutely told myself to give my all. Give her all my love, affection and care so she can (and I hope she did...) leave this world surrounded by love and warmth. I gave my all. Not wanting anything in return, but being human and self-interested of course I hoped and dreamed that after losing perhaps the strongest kind of love one will ever encounter in life, that between a mother and child, I needed to find something to make me heal. To date, more than a year on, I am still feeling so empty, so very empty inside. 

Yes, losing mum was a deep cut and trauma to my life, to my psyche. And is it too much to expect or hope for love to heal me, to protect me, to remind me of the reasons and purposes of living and life? This past year has been so turbulent, perhaps the most difficult struggle was coping with loss-- loss of loved one and loss of the certainty and promises of love. 

Love heals. But I have been so painfully left wanting, longing, and looking for it in vain in strangers, in friends, in family. I cannot explain why the bag with "Love heals" stood out in the midst of so many bags in the station hall. I cannot explain why that bag with "Love heals" spoke to my heart and spoke my mind. And I cannot explain why that bag in a way seemed to be mocking me. 

For so long, I feel so rejected, so abandoned and alone in my struggle to cope with grief. Why does it have to be like this? why has it been like this? Is it too much to find someone who will listen, who will empathize, who will not push me and tell me to "get on with things"? Is it too much to ask for understanding and compassion? Nowadays nobody asks how I am doing, they just assume I'm fine now because I have this wry smile on my face. People just assume I'm all right and healed now because I've been working and studying and taking exams. If only they knew how much of a struggle it has all been... If only they knew how difficult it is to fall asleep at night and find a reason to get up and get dressed in the morning...

When I think of the way so many friends have become so distant, even to the extent of saying I'm behaving and being "strange" in the aftermath of losing my mum, I cannot but feel so sad... Friends you thought were made for life cannot be/ are not even there in the face of death. Are they really friends at all? Why do I feel the need to get away so often? Why do I feel the need to find a new home and move? Because the city, the circle of friends, I have sought refuge in in the past five years have become so estranged, so very distant. 

Is it me? Am I too demanding, too focused on wanting a particular way and form of love, believing and thinking (falsely perhaps...) that love can heal me, lift me up and make me whole again? 

Love heals. 

Heal me... I need to heal myself.

So many dreams with mum and dad in them... In the latest one, mum was coming to Montreal and I was excitedly waiting at the airport to pick her up... Events that echoed something that happened in 2008...

I miss my parents... I miss having ueberhaupt having parents and a family...