"Oh what I'd give for a hundred years..."

"Oh, what I'd give for a hundred years,

But the physical interferes,

Everyday more, my Creator.

Oh, what good is the strongest heart,

In a body that's falling apart...?"

The actress half lay on the floor, weakened and defeated. Illness has robbed her of her strength, her courage, her fame and glory. Death is lurking and stalking her, life is fading away. How Evita must have felt toward the end of her life? How powerfully it was captured in song and on stage by the performance of Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical, one of my all time favorites...

The musical was a delight, and something I'd looked forward to some time. In my late teens, I listened to it repeatedly (without realising the true meaning of "dressed up to the nines" or "at sixes and sevens"). One song in particular, "another suitcase, another hall" I felt poignantly described my life.... Always moving, never stable, my family spread across the world, my destiny so unclear and unknown... And for those many years when (first dad and later to a greater extent) mum was ill, my suitcase was always close by and half packed ready to go at an instant's notice. 

Seeing Evita succumb to (as I realised only this weekend) cancer brought back a lot of emotions and memories... For the couple of months, I have been so consumed with work i feel like I've not even had time to "feel". Being someone who is normally in tune with and driven by emotions, I began to feel uncaring and detached from life and the rest of the world. I feel so drained and so very unhappy, even though I was busy and making more money than usual. Soon after the show, in my friends apartment, I stared out the window at the night cityscape, and described how I feel... 

And I sobbed. The first time in a long, long time, even though often at night, when all's so quiet when the world is asleep, the feelings of emptiness and longing flood my heart and bring me close to bursting out in tears. As I told my friend, more and more mum and dad appear before me together, whereas before it was either one or the other. 

Is it so that after some time the dead just get lumped together? Is it true that after some time you just blur death and all those memories of illness and hospital visits together? I've tried hard not to think of and let my thoughts drift there... But seeing evita on the floor and lamenting her body succumbing to illness, I could not do anything else...

Those long nights, and difficult days at the hospital seem like an eternity away now. But I can still see it, smell it, feel it. It was overwhelming, traumatic and horribly painful to endure. And that was just for me, a bystander. How it must have been for dad, for mum! For my friends. For my uncle... For all these millions of cancer patients, and other sufferers of chronical and terminal illnesses, and their families. 

What kept me sane? What kept me alive? The belief of love that will heal me. The belief  that one day I will find someone who will truly heal me and pick me up and fill that void inside. A void that is still void. 

And now, two and a half years on since mum's passing, almost seven years since dad's passing, I am still standing, seemingly going strong. But at times I wonder what holds it all together. Because in moments of solitude, at night and in moment of silence, I can hear the darkness and painful memories echo, I can feel the void vibrate. 

There are moments after my lectures when I stand in the empty classroom and wonder whether my parents are there sitting in the back, smiling at me on the sofa in the back...

There are moments at work when I am so stressed and my eyes so tired that I think of my parents and just doing that would give me a burst of perseverance... Are they proud of me? Would they be proud of me and what I have become and done since they left this world? I sure hope so...

Breakdown

I don't know what triggered it. I got home, my sweet little cat followed me around so lovingly, I melted touching her soft fur and looking into her soft innocent eyes...

I picked up two letters. Investments I've made recently with money from my parents. I walked around my house, looked at the unwashed dishes, heard the silence, sat down on the floor. The cat came to sit with me. She rolled on her back and made this cute innocent pose... I cried.

I felt like crying almost the whole day. Something was unleashed in me, and I could not control my tears. I cried and cried. Images came back to haunt me... Images of mum at the hospital, images conjured by this meditation music I played in the hope of sitting down to collect my mind. The same music I played every single night during those final few months when mum had much trouble sleeping.

I have not think about those days, did not conjure those images for a long, long time. Somehow they all came back to me... My mind jumped to the future, to one and a half month from now, to my upcoming trip to Taiwan. I cried even more. The loneliness... The pain, the longing...

I tried to collect my mind. But I could not. All I could feel was sadness, pain, and a sense of abandonment... Who could know how I am feeling?

My ex called almost at the same time I sat on the floor and began sobbing. I did not answer. I did not want to bother him anymore than is necessary. I don't want to , don't need to, fall into that cycle of relying on him and being led to believe that there is something special there. When someone is down, when someone is vulnerable, you tend to see more than what there is, you turn to rely on support and place false hopes on the one who can provide you with comfort and with support. I fell pray to that, I cannot allow myself to fall to that again...

As I sat and cried I saw mum's face, saw her sweet and soft face. The cat eyed me and became so quiet, as if she could see how I am hurting, as if she felt it necessary to stay quiet to match the sad and down mood I am in.

I tried to stop crying, I needed to be strong. Who would like or even want to be with someone who is weak and so fragile?
But in all honesty, I do need someone by my side right now, I do pray and hope someone could hold me and calm me down... I saw faces of my friends, friends I have become so distant from, friends who nowadays find it so awkward to talk to me or approach me because they don't know or don't want to know what it feels like to see death, to talk about or deal with death and loss...

I'm sorry, mum, dad... Sorry I'm breaking down again... I must be stronger, must find my own strength within...

Massage

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Mum began going to the massage parlour back in 2009. The list of beauty treatments she underwent, from acupuncture to facial treatments, from scented massage therapy to steam room therapy, goes on for pages. Behind every treatment is her signature. Her own handwriting. I touched the pages and the pen marks.

"Mum was here... She left behind these marks..."

The last time she had a massage was 8 March of this year, a few days after she was discharged from the hospital for the first time after she began to severely vomit. I was with her that last time she was here. I remember that day vividly. She even threw up before entering the massage parlour, after she ate two pieces of sushi she bought at the nearby metro station. That was the beginning of a very excruciating and worrying period of vomiting and mum growing ever thinner. That was before anyone knew what was spreading and growing inside her bowels. That was then, when she was still around.

"How's your mother? Is she resting at home?" the masseuse who has known mum for these couple of years asked. yes, mum is resting alright. Brother and I had to explain what happened to mum.

For the next two hours or so, as the masseuse worked on my body, we talked about how mum was, and about how the end was. At points I felt like crying. Seeing those images of the final few weeks, of the final few days, is painful, even if they were just intangible memories temporarily flashing across my mind.

New home

I began crying almost as soon as I saw the sea. For four years, the view of the vast open Pacific was associated with the view dad would 'see' from his final resting place. After today's events, mum would share the same view...

Mum 'moved' into her final resting place today. We prepared some of her favourite foods and drinks and after a quick and solemn ceremony at the temple, we brought her remains up to the sixth floor. It's the VIP section, a beautifully decorated and bright section of the temple where urns can be kept behind a 'deposit-box' like space with a transparent glass cover. The urn is placed all the way at the back, whereas in front is a little space containing the statue of a Buddha, and room to place some personal items.

We picked out two pictures of mum, both of which were of her smiling dazzlingly. One is her in southern France, about to enter a fancy restaurant I believe. It shot that was captured captured the moment a cat jumped onto her shoulders. She bent over and laughed from the sudden surprise of it all. Brother took this picture. The other picture is of mum on a train in Switzerland. We were going somewhere together, on perhaps our fifth trip to Switzerland together. She looked outside the window and had a beautiful smile-- a smile showing quiet contentment and a certain gentleness. I took this picture. Inside her new 'home', right next to her urn, we placed her glasses and a pair of her sunglasses. "She would need these if she were to go traveling," brother said. Indeed in various pictures of her, she is seen with her darkened lenses against the brightness of a sunny day. We placed her wallet inside too, with the remaining NT$1100 and some spare coins she had in her wallet the day she left the hospital. We took out her cards, namely her national ID card and national health insurance card. We would like to keep those, for memory's sake. But we placed in her wallet a public transport travel card. "In case she needs it to get from place to place," brother joked.


Just before heading to the temple with mum's remains, I picked up two more things that eventually decorated her new 'home'. A wooden tulip, a symbol of the Netherlands where she lived for so many years and where my brother and his family lives, and a gold-plated maple leaf, a symbol of where I live and where she had fond, fond memories of her last trip abroad. These momentos would remain with her forever. These moments would remind us of who mum was, and where she made and shared with us beautiful, beautiful memories.

As the left the temple, I looked back at it. I cried. I could not control my tears or my thoughts. Before, it was just my dad, but from now on, both my parents are resting there. The depth of loss and pain dawned on me, clearer and more painfully than ever before. For several moments, I could not help but shed such sadness and tears. I pressed my head against the car window and tried to get ahold of myself, tried to tame my emotions. But the pain was tearing my heart apart.

"Farewell, mum..." I thought inside my head, "Please take good care of yourself... I will do the same..." Or at least, I will try to do the same. "I will be strong, so you don't have to worry about me..." My face contorted in spite, and my lips quivered from the pain. My ex saw that, and extended his hand to comfort me. But the pain is deep, and the pain is so deeply personal.

I grabbed the heart-shaped pillow that was part of my Mother's Day gift to her, my last Mother's Day gift to her. The heart stayed with her at the hospice till the very end. The bright red heart, and two stuffed animals, were there at the hospice with her, watching over her. The animals attended the funeral too, and got front row seats. They accompanied mum on the final stage of her journey, and also came along to bid her a final farewell. I held onto the heart-shaped pillow tightly, pretended it was my mother's warm body I was holding.

I closed my eyes, tried to shut away the loss and pain. Sleep drowned it all, drowned out the emotions and pain. I was woken up half an hour later or so to a calming, beautiful sunset. Golden and orange rays pierced the sky and dyed the inside of the minivan in a soft and soothing tone as the sun slowly set behind mountains surrounding Taipei. Gone were the tears, and the rain, from earlier in the day.

In Taiwan, a sudden dramatic spell of rain followed by a brightening of the sky is an auspicious omen. It is cause for rejoicing, and on the day when we bid farewell to mum, it is cause to find comfort in the fact that the heavens watching over her, and that she will have a steady onward journey to the world hereafter. 

"Farewell, mama... farewell, and walk steadily onward..."

Biking

Mum's youngest sisters came today. At one moment, a picture of mum biking in the woods flashed across the screen.

"Your mum loved to bike! She would bike to school, bike everywhere! When she was in university, she asked for a bike to be sent to her. She would bike around campus all the time!" My aunt was smiling while she reminisced mum's biking habits. A few moments later, there was another picture of her on a bike, when she biked with me on a trip a few year back, to the eastern part of the island.

I too smiled. I now know more about mum, even though she is gone. I know now where I get my biking interest from, and why every time I bike I feel so happy and so free...

Empty chair

Mum used to love sitting in that chair. Sometimes she would get up, and the first thing she would do is sit in that chair. The chair leans back, and she can put her entire weight on it, and rest her sore arms and numb hands... She can lean back and temporarily at least not feel the pain of her shoulders and back, pain she told me many times feels like her bones are being torn apart...

The chair is now empty...