It's miraculous how ten years go by. It dawned on me a few weeks ago that it's ten years since mum passed. Those moments in hospital with her, those grueling moments of despair and helplessness seeing her get sick. Those moments are like a long distant dream, but they also appear to be so real, so vivid.
No, I no longer wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares or haunted by harrowing images of hospital wards or deeply pained by the image of mum's (sometimes dad's) kind face. Ten years has passed just like that, and to be honest, as is clear from the fewer entries in this blog, most of those tens years have become routine and repetitive. Ten years is also the same length of time I have worked at the same job--a fact that I was reminded of when my colleagues sprung a surprise on me at our first in-person reception a month back.
Routine and repetitiveness can be a good thing, as it means that life is going well, and there is little worry or concern in life. That is a far cry from ten, twelve, or even twenty years ago, when there was so much uncertainty, anxiety and unknowns about the future (well, I still have anxieties, and am still faced with unknowns about the future).
But routine and repetitiveness can also feel sad as it makes you wonder what you haive really done, what you have really been doing all this time. Is life just too stable and stagnant that you cannot remember all those wonderful and little things you have done? Has life just become a grind and a blur that just passes by so quickly that certain moments hit you hard how "old" you have grown over the years?
I knelt before the offerings I prepared for mum, and closed my eyes momentarily. In the background Guru Dev Namo, a song that I used to play often to relax mum and (hopefully, as naively as it may be) soothe her physical pain and mental anguish in hospital. I silently asked her to watch over and bless my relatives, my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephew, my niece... (I imagine she has already been doing that).
Then I felt a void.
Has it been too long that I do not know what I should say to her?
I felt this void...
There appear to be words and thoughts, but I did not have the words to capture them.
Has it been too long that I have "prayed" that I forgot how to communicate with my dearest mum?
I lay on the sofa quietly, next to my cat, and closed my eyes as the song continued.
Ong namo Guru Dev Namo
Ong namo
Guru dev namo...
(I bow to the divine teacher.)
I felt this pinch of sadness overcome me.
I feel that way sometimes, often when least expected.
A void and loneliness that I think cannot be filled.
Temporary, but enough to leave you feeling so vulnerable, exposed, and broken for moments thereafter.
I looked around the apartment that I have lived in for close to seven years.
The apartment that I can proudly call my own, the apartment that I remember the day I moved into, I sat on the floor of the empty space and shed some tears.
They were tears of happiness, tears of also sadness.
My first home, yet, my parents are not there to share it with me.
My first home, made possible because of my parents who saved and worked hard to give me a better life.
Thinking back, I realise just then how far I have come.
And I realise how far I still have to go.
This little commemoration ceremony may well be the last I hold in this home for some time, for in around three months, I will need to have packed up everything and be ready for the next stage of my journey.
