Eve of the surgery

I rushed home to quickly shower and grab some things after the doctor explained to us the procedure tomorrow. I didn't really need to go home, but there were two things I wanted to do.

I got home, and knelt before dad's portrait. "Please dad, protect mum and help her surgery to go smoothly tomorrow... May she eat and drink away, may she at least enjoy some of the privileges of living by being able to taste, to digest food naturally... May she have strength again and may she have the health to live a life of happiness..." I knelt on the floor, and kowtowed with great reverence. Tears were on the rim of my eyes. It was a touching moment of just me and dad, and my prayers...

I also prayed before the little shrine mum has set up in the dining/living room area. A thought came to me out of nowhere, again the random imagination of a naive child who daydreams in order to escape from reality at times. I thought to my self and asked the deity: " if I have accumulated any good merit points in all my life, I would cash it all in and direct all the positive karma to mum in the hope that the surgery will go well, and that she will be free from her problem of not being able to eat or drink. Take my good fortunes away, take anything from me, just let mum come out alright..."

Before I left home, I did the second thing I went home to do. I grabbed the most recent family portrait, of me on the left, brother in the middle, and his wife on the right. In the foreground is mum sitting down and holding my little nephew. Our first family portrait together. "We are family..." I once commented it the portrait. We are family, and we can grow strong, be strong together, no matter what. I took that portrait, and it is now standing at an angle where mum can see from her lying down position.

Anything, anything, absolutely anything to keep the hopes up, to keep the spirit afloat and mind at ease. As I headed back to the hospital, I sat quietly in the taxi. The scenery outside was a complete blur. All I could see and imagine were scenes of "this time tomorrow"... Will mum be conscious? Will she be in the intensive care unit? Will the procedure have gone as planned? Will the doctor come out and say to me "I'm sorry, we did the best we could..."? I was again so afraid; so anxious, such a nervous wreck...

Before sleeping, I meditated a bit in front of mum. For a few moments, I places my hand on mum's belly, ad imagined... That inside, it is not so bad... that tomorrow, the doctor will open her up and easily do the procedures they had planned... That they will be able to stitch mum ip again and that the condition will be stable for some time at least...

Pray, pray, pray...

Letter to ancestors

I went into the store and was embarrassed to ask for what I wanted. "A pack of Marlboro Light..."
I was embarrassed to be associated with the terrible stigma (at least according to me...) of "smoker". I actually wanted to tell the convenience store kid "It's not for me!" But probably the guy will think of me strange. Wouldn't you when someone comes to buy a pack of cigarettes at eleven in the evening and say it's not for him?

It really wasn't for me, but for my ancestors and for my dad. In around two weeks is Tombsweeping Festival, the day when we commemorate the deceased (there are a number of these days throughout the lunar calendar...). As we want to beat the crowds (it gets really crazy and crowded...), I asked my sister-in-law to come up with my nephew, and tomorrow we'll go to dad's resting place early in the morning. My aunt helped to buy a lot of prepared dishes, so all I have to do is cook some rice and pack everything in the morning, and I'd be ready to leave.

Besides the packet of cigarettes (really, not for me!!), I included a letter I handwrote. A letter to my ancestors and dad asking for their forgiveness that mum cannot be there again (she could not be there on Lunar New Year's Eve, because she just left the hospital) as she is now in hospital again. I'm sure they would not mind, but still I wanted to write to them and tell them that from now on, mum probably cannot prepare elaborate feasts and offerings on special occasions. She is simply too frail and too ill to get up and have to cook and travel an hour and a half away and perform a whole ceremony of offerings. In my letter, I wrote as long as I live, I will take over the task of making offerings, and I promise to do that at least twice a year, wherever I may be. (In fact, I have been doing that for the last two years, so I hope my ancestors will be used to my cooking!)

In my letter I also asked for the ancestors' protection, something I will again pray for tomorrow when I am standing before the ancestral plaque. "Take care of mum, may her remaining days be happy and free from bodily and mental pains... And if she should go, dad please guide her and allow her to steadily, steadily leave this world..."

How desperate I have become... But at a time when there is nothing else to cling onto, when all hope and prayer to some supreme force in the universe seem senseless, traditions and prayers to those long gone are all I have.