Three more nights

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Lying down to sleep, the first of three last nights here in mum's home. It's quiet outside, but a few hundred kilometers to the south, Tembin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tembin_(2012)
Is unleashing chaos and destruction for the second time as it returns to pummel the island hard. I am hugging a large teddy, one my Ex gave me some time ago. The teddy has been with mum for over two years, and accompanied her all the way till the end of her life. Soon, the soft and lovable bear in my embrace, who kept me company and kept the loneliness at bay for so many nights and comforted me to sleep, will make his way out of my life again, and accompany my nephew back to Europe.

It is unusually quiet, and my mind is a haze. A haze. Another crippling spell of fatigue has overcome me, and I feel such heavy dizziness and a strange mixture of emotions I cannot express, I cannot capture...

Can hurt be so painful that you become numb? Can pain be so powerful that you do not feel anything at all? I am out of words, am too tired and too exhausted to properly reflect on all that has happened here over the past few weeks, let alone to write something worth of being written and read or remotely touching to mark the end of a long, long stay...

I will fall asleep, wake up, and a new day will have already begun. Far too quickly, far too quickly.

Sold

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Over a month of preparation for this day.
I signed my name and stamped my seal. And the deal  was  made.

This house, one I helped moved into and one in which I have spent many a nights over the past three years, is no longer mine. From this day on, I am just a visitor here.

What was never mine will never be mine.

Sleeplessness

Terrible night, been up since 1am, and only managed to sleep for two hours or so. Don't know why I can't sleep, even though I have a horrible headache.

I lie in bed and try to sleep, but thoughts, and a heavy sense of sadness keeps me awake.

"Seven more days..."

"What will happen...?"

"Will I fly away as planned?"

"Will mum be able to return home before I leave...?"

The birds are singing already. Another new day begins, but my night has not yet ended...

Dream

Does anything have to make sense? Do images in my mind need to connect? Am I insane?

Falling. Falling. Falling. Bed. Rush of water. Mum. Pain. Anger. Lump of cells. Blood. More Blood. Crying. Needles. Frowning face. Agony. Pain. Stomach grumbling. Doctors. Hospital bed. Empty. Empty. Machine Beeping. Beeping. Beeping...

Sleepless night

I cannot sleep... Already three in the morning, and yet I'm wide awake. I fell asleep for an hour or so, and then was woken up by the night nurse coming to check on mum. Since then, a mosquito, sounds of snoring, and my own proliferating mind has kept me awake... To think of it, even when I was "sleeping", my mind was not. So many images, so many thoughts, so disturbed, so agitated and scared... And most of all, this creeping loneliness and sense Abandonement pesters me, haunts me...Deeply.

Easter snow

It snowed on Easter Sunday, and it snowed today. In fact, I think outside it is still drizzling with snow. No white Christmas, as it should be, but a white Easter, as it unexpectedly is.

Over the long Easter weekend I finally had the time to rest and catch up on my sleep. Ever since I got back to the Netherlands, I have been working almost non-stop every single day. I did not even have the time to unpack my suitcase, and I was off to work again. So what a relief that I could have a few days to sleep in and slowly get accustomed to the time difference.

People ask me how I am feeling, and to be honest I am not sure. I am... content. I am just moving from moment to moment and still carrying on with life doing the best that I can with what I have. Nothing less. Nothing more. Work really is taking a lot of my time. Today, for example, I went in at around nine in the morning, sat down, and worked and worked till eight in the evening. No time to eat, no time to go out for a breath of fresh air... just work, work, work... answering emails, making phone calls, writing letters, stuffing envelops, planning events... Thank goodness my colleagues and assistants were there, or else I would have lost it.

So I come home every day, feeling already very tired that the only thing I want to do is lie down and sleep. And the next day again, work, work, work, as surely as the sun rises at dawn, and falls at dusk. Though, in the weekend, when I was unpacking my suitcase and cleaning my room, there were a few moments I felt sadness creep up...

Perhaps it was the snow drifting outside... The beauty of it, the serenity that made me think to myself what a shame it is that my dad can no longer enjoy it... A slight, fleeting moment of sadness and remorse... until I blink away the thought and go back to whatever I was doing then.

The other day I went for a walk in the slight snow, and eventually my footsteps took me to the forest nearby. As I approached the pond, there was a whole crowd of daffodils "tossing their heads in sprightly dance" as the light snowflakes, drifted, danced and fell so softly on the grass and vanished as suddenly as it appeared... Nobody would have known the snowflake was there, or ever existed. A father took his young son by the hand, son who was perhaps just learning to walk. He wobbled, and the father looked on smilingly, tugging at his arm in those moments just as the son looked like he was about to fall. The son giggled, and splashed in the puddles. The daffodils danced a bit more. I looked away, but the effects of that scene lingered, just as the memories of my dad still lingers on within.

Work is good. It keeps people occupied, it keeps people full and fills them with a purpose. But when does work become merely a distraction... or even an escape?

So when people ask me how I am feeling, to be honest I am still not sure.

Talk with dad...

"To put it in a way that sounds terrible to hear, when I'm gone I couldn't care less what happens to this all."

Dad said that a few moments ago, and I was again taken aback.

It's rare that I talk to dad, and even rarer for a long time. When he came home late tonight, I walked up to him and tried to start a conversation. Who would have known that lasted two hours. Except the two nights he spent at home and had dinner with us, this was the longest time dad and I sat together in the living room in the past two weeks.

It started slowly, and mildly, small chit-chat about what we both did today, and where we went. I said I went to see a friend of my mum's, who took care of me and treated me like her own son in those years in high school when I lived completely by myself. It's been over five years since I last saw this dear friend, and I told dad how surprised I was at how people age and grow old. In a way, I was hinting at my dad, and made it more plainly so when I said to dad that even though that friend has grown old and looks somewhat tired, she still lives happily from day to day enjoying life, and enjoying the company of her husband in their house in the middle of the woods. Dad merely scoffed and wondered aloud what boring lives these people must lead.

It always seems to be like this when I talk to dad... you tell him one thing, and he comes up with negative things and complaints to say about that something or someone. And it's worse when it comes to any subject remotely related to either mum or brother... then it sometimes frightens me how much of that deep seated hatred and misunderstanding arises and bursts out, as talk clenches his teeth and gathers this tense, angry look in his eyes. Then, there were also moments when we connected, as we recalled moments in the past, moments growing up and when I was young. It seems like just yesterday when I first set steps in Europe, and now I've lived here almost 16years. All the ups and downs, the falls and climbing-back-ups. The sweet, bitter memories...

Since tomorrow is the last day of his stay here, dad told me what he thought about the past two weeks. He said he needed to explain why he reacted in the way he did. I sat and listened, nodding at times to show that I am listening and that I understand, as he talked about how he needs to protect his self-interests against "certain people", to guard against "other people" who might infringe against his rights and squander all his money, and about how he needs to be able to know that he can be in control of his money and assets. He ranted on about how the "other people" have treated him so unkindly and rudely, how they have shown him only a long and unwelcome face. Dad ranted on about how angry and disappointment, more than any other time he can remember in his whole life, of the "worthless dog" he raised. These 'other' or 'certain' people were no other than my brother... and to some extent my mum...

Angry, hurtful words... I sat and listened and nodded in understanding, but deep down inside I searched (hopelessly) for any show of emotions and love that may or may not be hiding behind dad's attachment to money and assets and profit. Perhaps it's years of working in a bank, or perhaps because he had a poor and deprived childhood growing up with five other children in poverty, but to him money and how to make or own more seems to be the most important thing in life. He even said it himself, much to my disappointment, that a house is nothing more than an investment. I said that a house is a place where you go back to to feel safe and sheltered from the outside world, but dad insisted it's nothing more than a "commodity" on a market in the capitalist world to invest in and to sell for profit...


At one point I asked him what he plans to do in the future, and how things should go between him and mum. Dad said he lives his life and doesn't want any one to bother him or interfere with how he lives, and started to berate mum for caring about what he eats and what he does all day. Taking this opportunity, I asked him why they don't simply live separately, or better still, divorce all together. I explained that, like I told them , and so many, many times in the past, I really don't want to see them live unhappy lives and have to suffer because they don't want to be with or see each other. I said, like I said so many times already, both of them are already so ill, and both need a calm and peaceful environment of living that is free from agitation and frustration, and living together is simply not helping anyone. Dad hesitated a little, and finally admitted: "To put it in an ugly way, I don't want to divorce because then mum will get half of everything."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry... all he cares about is money, money, money... I was surprised myself, but I asked a question I didn't know I could ask: "What if she divorces without having any of your money...?"

There was no hesitation, and in a loud, firm voice, dad said: "OK! I agree."

I was saddened, and a tingly feeling went up my spine...

Dad, where is the dad I used to know?

Dad, who have you become?

Lady in the train...

It was only when I looked up again that I realised she was crying.

Before I sat down diagonally opposite her I nonchalantly gave her a smile, the kind of smile you give to strangers on the train who you happen to be sitting with. I dug into my sandwich, and the magazine I had with me.

A few moments later I looked her, and from the bottom lid of her eye a big bead of teardrop fell and dampened her white blouse. It was then I realised she was crying. I felt 'guilty' for not having noticed it before. But I didn't want to stare, so looked down again, fumbling nervously with my cheese, ham and buns. At first, like the self-conscious and self-critical me I am, I thought that perhaps it was something about me that smelt bad. From her her swollen and reddened eyes, I realised then why it was that the lady had her hand across her nose.

Though for the ten minutes or so until my stop I felt uneasy sitting there, so close to a middle aged lady who was obviously very hurt. Tear drops didn't stp falling, and she stared with dead eyes out of the window as the morning sun shone inward. Cows, fields, forests and canals flashed by, but their beauty did nothing to soothe her pain. I glanced up at her, pretending to be uninterested and blind to her tears, but deep done I was concerned, concerned a fellow human being was suffering in silence.

I wanted to say something to her, to ask her if she was alright. I wanted to tell her that whatever it was that was hurting her, that was making her cry will pass. I wanted to tell her that sadness, like happiness, and all other feelings and things in life, will come and go, come and go.

But I didn't dare, and my shyness got the better of me. I kept my thoughts to myself, my concern for a fellow human being in need hid within me, because I was scared that maybe she'd react with hostility toward me butting into her life. Was I uncaring and less of a person because of that? Or has society reached a stage in which seeing a stranger cry is better dealt with by pretending not to see? The passenger sitting right next to the lady slept. Or perhaps pretended to sleep.

A few moments before the train arrived at the station, she gathered her bags and wiped her tears one last time. She excused herself as she stood up and brushed against me slightly and made her way to the door. I soon got off the train too. Amid the crowd of travellers I found her again, walking out of the station, with a heavy bag of documents in hand. I only saw the back of her head, but I imagined that her eyes were still swollen, that her eyes were still red.

And soon she vanished in the crowd. But my thoughts stayed with her, as I too was lost in the crowd.