just give me a reason...

Why does almost every song they play at this event speak to me and make me cry...?

It's depressing...

A new day?

The music touched my heart and I cried. I cried in the middle of a joyous, fun festival as part of the city's gay pride. I could not contain my tears.

Let the rain come down
And wash away my tears
Let it fill my soul
And drown my fears
Let it shatter the walls

The songs that played spoke to my heart. Maybe I am too sensitive, maybe my feelings are too raw. I look around and see all these couples holding hands, kissing, swooning in love. All these couples together. And just made me feel all the more alone.

Earlier, we had a pre-event party, and we all gathered at someone's house and all brought food to share. I went for a little while, and at the earliest opportunity left. 

Why did I have to leave a social gathering quickly and early? I Cannot play into the hypocrisy of everything in life being fine and dandy because of the smile on my face. I simply cannot stand how behind the person, when the person is away, people make fun of him, and yet at a party pretend as if they're all best buddies. How shallow, how pretentious... It's so sad...

A friend asked me where I was last year, exactly a year ago, during the biggest pride event of the year. I hesitated a moment, didn't know what or how to answer. Of course other people may have forgotten. And I am trying to forget. But the question threw me off track and made me remember again.

I was waiting for so long
For a miracle to come
Everyone told me to be strong
Hold on and don't shed a tear

I was home. In Taiwan. Two weeks after mum was cremated. Three weeks after the terrible rupture with my Ex, who not so long ago told me all the things I wanted to hear, needed to hear, to keep the faith, to keep on dreaming and hoping. I was in a terribly numb state of mind. I still am. 

And who is suffering most? The one who remembers. The one who cannot forget, the one who cannot let go. The one who cannot pretend or hide tears, pain or sadness, and as a result is sidelined in a world circling around fun and thrills and forgetting all that bothers and disturbs us. 

Where it was dark now there's is light
Where there was pain, now there's joy
Where there was weakness, i found my strength
All in the eyes of a boy

"A new day has come..."

I long for that day. I so do.

Handyman

For a week or so, I have been helping  friend move and settle down in his new home. Some days, we start early in the day, sevenish he comes to pick me up to work a few hours before heading to work. Then after work, we would drive to furniture stores in search of bargains and exploring Ikea for value and quality pieces of furniture to fill up his space. I don't think I've assembled as many pieces of furniture in as short amount of time, not even for myself.

It's really been exhausting, and at night I collapse into bed, relieved to be able to sleep (sometimes to be woken up by my phone vibrating...) But in some ways, I'm happy to be helping a friend, even if it means completely taking away valuable study time for my impending exams... It's nice to build something, to look around furniture stores and dream of my dream home, dream of my dream kitchen and a lovely, cosy bedroom where I would fall asleep with my partner (still MIA, or rather, to be located...)  The entire experience of helping my friend really has driven me to want to settle down and buy a house on my own....


I so wish to be able to build a home, to design minute details of my own little places in the world and to find a sense of belonging. The last time I did that was back in 2009, with the help of my ex and best friend. What joy we had, what beautiful memories of painting and scrubbing, of building furniture and building a "home" together... Something to cherish for ever. Something to look forward to always...

 

Dream

I saw myself in a car. I heard myself howl and sob. Where was I going? The car seemed to be going very fast. 

I howled some more, whimpered like a wounded dog. I could just make out the sound I was making "Mum... Mum..." 

In front of the car, in the driver seat was dad...

Breakdown...

How did I just spend over an hour on the phone to my ex? How did my confidence become so shattered and how did I feel so low about myself? I want to feel good about myself, feel like I am capable of doing something, like I am worthy of life and living...

But I feel so weak and worthless, so painfully worthless.
Why? Shaking like a leaf...
It's the past again, isn't it? It's the terrible things compounded with all that death and loss in the past year coming to haunt me and causing me to struggle again?

And just when I thought I was better... Just when I thought I was getting better.

Death of grandma...

 Grandma (dad's mum...) was probably the kindness and most selfless person I knew for the longest time growing up. I spent so many summers with her, sitting by her side while she looked out the front door and welcomed passerby into her home for a drink on a hot day... I spent so many hours with her, sitting by her side at the hospital while she underwent dialysis...

I saw her in my dream just now, at her deathbed. Though I wasn't actually there (my mum was... She rushed back to Taiwan the very next morning after receiving a phone call late at night... I remember it was on a Swiss Air Asia flight, at the time an MD-11... 

In the dream we (my mum and auntie) clambered up the stairs at my auntie's place to get to the third floor bedroom (where dad and I used to stay whenever we visited his side of the family in his hometown...) to see her, for one last look. She's looked so thin, and was in great discomfort and pain (she died of liver disease...)

I cried and shed so many tears as I rushed up the stairs... I tried hard not to howl, not to many any noises while crying... So vivid the dream... So real, too real...

I woke up crying.

Parentless

"They left already..." I said. My colleague, with whom I had a work lunch today,did not really understand. 

"They're no longer around..." His faced turned and immediately there was an outpouring of sympathy from him, which almost triggered an overflow of tears from me. Moments like this make me wish I could just reach for the phone and call someone. Call someone and talk to someone who can understand, who is willing to listen and try to understand. Call someone and talk to someone who can accompany me home and not leave till I fall asleep... Of course, this person only exists in my fantasy. 

It's occasions like this that remind me again and again I am parentless. I am not unique in this sense, but to many, especially those who are parents themselves of children my age the fact that both my parents are gone seems to attract sad empathetic frowns and "You are still so young..." or you have gone through so much..."  You cannot, cannot imagine. 

I don't recall how the conversation turned to this, but again this episode today reminded me again this is the way it's going to be for some time. People are going to ask, and I am going to be reminded of the reality that my parents are no longer around. How do I face it? With a grimace... With an awkward laugh perhaps... With some stoic line like "It's alright. It's been a year..."? All the while deep inside I am crying. Crying all over again...

The warnings signs are all there.

But do you want to see it? Do you want to let it register? Or do you choose to pretend everything is fine and dandy?

Message to...

Break in

Such horribly vivid memories of work and people at work. I saw all these images of documents being edited and written,  of faces and heated discussions, of unanswered emails and frustratingly people who do not reply at all to my repeated calls for help. 

Suddenly there was a noise, the noise of my bedroom door opening. I was waken from my sleep, my heart raced. I opened my eyes. Half last five. Second time I was waken from my sleep this night. I thought someone was in the house. The cat jumped and dashed across the corridor. She looked up and looked into the distance, as if someone is there...

I am getting paranoid. 

Mounting stress

Quarter to ten at night. Just left the office and heading home on the metro. What a long day. Long but unproductive. And for some reason, so exhausted... So tired I feel like I could just faint and collapse...And it just dawned on me again: twenty days till my first upcoming exam, yet I've studied an hour or two only. How many more hours to go till I feel confident and prepared enough to sit the exam? 

I meant to study or at least do some work this past weekend. But a good friend was busy moving to his new apartment and asked me to accompany him while he looked for furniture and appliances. I couldn't decline, so for two whole days drove from place to place looking for quality and affordable furniture. It helped me in a way, as I've dreamed of owning my place for a while and am taking little steps to start looking. Seeing all these appliances and sofas reminded me in a while of how basic my own apartment is, and how little I actually have. But no matter. As my friend told me...) my hospitality and the warmth of my home (including my sweet little cat...) more than makes up for the lack of furnishings.

 Last night, I stayed at his eye place till almost midnight to assemble furniture. I enjoy doing this for friends, and did not feel tired at all. It brings me joy to know I'm helping a friend settle down in his new place, in a way contributing to a new beginning. Even my friend commented i look so happy and engaged when I'm deciphering how to assemble the different pieces together. While I sat there tightening bolts an nuts on the ikea furniture, I was reminded of the last time I did it, for my ex. Sweet memories.

These days, I have suddenly so much work at work, and it's kept me away from studying. And this weekend my ex is coming back to the city, something that always makes me so disturbed and unsettled because in truth it just pains me to know he's so close by yet I cannot touch him or behave the same way around him like we have done for so long. It pains me to think, to know he's in the same city, yet lying with another person. How easy it is for another to do that... How painful and difficult it is for me to accept and just move forward with my own life an let go of all those promises of love and a future tofehr. I doubt I can get much work done again...

I wish I could just get away from here and not face anything. Not have to face mutual friends who see everything as a joke and source of gossip... Not have to face or be exposed to being this sad former lover left alone and still wondering in the dark why or how everything went sour and died... After several weeks of healing and relative calm in my life, I finally have some sense of stability and security. I dread to have it all shattered again having to face the unpleasantries and difficult reminders of the past when the ex visiting...

Hidden feelings

They do not know, behind the smiles, the joking around, the "normalcy" of it all, I am still hurting, still so lonely and reeling from a deep sense of dislluisonment and loss... They do not realise how often at night I cry alone or wake up from a nightmare longing for comfort and consolation...

Shudders

My phone contains over two thousand and six hundred pictures. Sometimes I accidentally see them, all of them, some of which date from the summer of 2011.

Many date from 2012, the extremely tumultuous and painful, painful year of hospital visits, hospital overnights, decline, disappointment and losses. I have not had the courage to delete those pictures... It is as if deleting them were disrespectful of all the pain, the moans, the tears and the suffering I saw mum go through... As if deleting the pictures erased  a chapter of my life that I wish to forget, but am so afraid makes me less human, less loving and erased all the love and affection I gave my mum. 

But seeing the pictures cry... Mum lounging on her bed with a tube stick up her nostril... My hand clutching onto her hand, silently passing positive energy and hope and life into her body (in vain...)... My nephew making us all laugh and forget about the difficulties we were facing... The ex who visited and in that short week gave me such hope and such promising future immediately after mum passed... Painful. Simply painful...

One by one, the pictures will be erased. One by one, they will be forever gone from my phone...

Bright eyes...

Suddenly as soon as the music sounded in the room and the words flashed across the screen, I began to tear.I have not cried since my return from Taiwan, since I bid farewell to my mum, my dad a month ago...

Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?

There's a fog along the horizon,
A strange glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know where you go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream...?

It's just a song. Just words, sentiments, sounds, notes, just the softness of an artist's voice, just the emotions evoked by vibrating chords on a guitar... Yet they mean so much more to my ears, so much more to my weary, weary heart and soul. A word, a sign, a song, a smell, a taste, a picture, a thought, a memory... everything and anything could cause the false sense of "I'm-over-it" to completely crumble and drive my mind and mood to experience such intense pain and loneliness...

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
How can you close and fail
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.  

I saw my mum's eyes before me suddenly... eyes that once were so bright, so filled with love slowly fade as signs of her life waned and faded... Those soft, loving eyes that looked at me with such love and affection, that looked at me with such motherliness and unconditional care. Where could I find such a glance again? How can such bright eyes suddenly fade and become so eyes? How can the eyes of the mother I grew up imagining would watch me grow up and grow older, watch me graduate and settle down to found a family, so suddenly "close and fail..."?

Just as you think things are ok and life is back to "normal" again, just as you believe you can "move on", the sadness and the pain that is so deep and so personal comes back to remind you you are still vulnerable, you are still so very vulnerable and need to heal... "You don't move on from it, you move forward with it", I heard some one on the radio say the other day.

Move forward with it... move forward with it in the hope that one day, one day, the load will lighten, and that my eyes that "burn so pale" and are dampened with tears  will again "burn so brightly"...












Is it a kind of shadow,
Reaching into the night,
Wandering over the hills unseen,
Or is it a dream?

Two sided

I am always surprised how two sided people can be, and more and more I see it around me. Was I naive before, and did I for too long refuse to see the "real" face of people? Did I cling too long onto the idea that everyone is innately good and kind and selfless?

At work, a series of events over the past year or so have made me so tired and cautious at work. People stepping over one another to get recognition... people bickering and feuding privately, yet openly and publicly maintaining this charade of being the best of friends... mud-slinging and bad-mouthing when someone is not around, and yet praising and boot-licking when the person appears... the hypocrisy, double standards, the pride and prejudices, the "daggers behind smiles" can be sometimes nauseating. But this is every day life... every day politics at work, amongst colleagues and "friends".
 
And it is ugly. Uglier yet when people you held such respect for could in favour of money, fame, glory, respect, shed their lofty academic credentials and titles and become such petty people. It just shows, we are all human after all, and titles, degrees, number of books written do not make a person better. In any way.
 




They say as you grow older you become disillusioned with life, you begin lose hope and lose faith in the world and in people. They say that. But somehow I still want to believe people are not inherently selfish; people are just ignorant and unaware. I still want to somehow believe people are the way they are because of circumstances and their upbringing, experiences and surroundings.

But with all that's going on at work, it just makes me want to move on and move away at the earliest opportunity. 

Family

I received a census in my email and began filling it in. There were questions about my family, my background, my childhood (even very personal questions about abuse experiences as a child...). And there were questions about whether I want to have a family.

Yes, I do. I haven't thought about it for a long time, not since last year, but it's always been at the back of my mind. The reason why I've not thought about it is simply this: you can't have a family being single, and for now, for too long, there's just no longer any potential to start anything. The closest family I have now, at least in the immediate surroundings, is my cat. And perhaps my collection of stuffed animals. My brother and his family are family too... But they are too far away, and in many ways since he got married two years ago he started his own family, one with a lovely and lively one-and-half year old.

I look at pictures of my nephew an am often filled with envy and longing. Sure, behind the cute poses and laughters must be a long of frustrations and exhaustion  ( having and raising a child is not easy...) but the beautiful moments together, family time, dinner together, coming home to a child wanting for you, watching the child grow up, take his/her first steps, speak the first words, bike, go to school for the first time and so on and so on... Those are moments and experiences that are so precious. Precious in part because they provide you with the opportunity to relive what you experienced earlier on in life.

Mum dying and leaving this world last year made me long more for the idea of starting my own family. When you begin to lose something, you long for it even more. losing mum was a final break in the disintegration of the idea and feel of family, and I knew it. Hence the hurt and paralyzing disbelief and lingering pain when my ex made all these promises that with time became more like words to placate me in a time of desperation and longing for hope.

But that's all in the past now... Or is it? 

My ex called and we spoke last night ( he calls almost every night... Strange, yes.) and somehow we got onto the topic of babies and children. (Must have been triggered by the news of the birth of the latest heir to the British crown) He and I both want to have kids. For a few minutes we talked about how wonderful it would be, about how many children we like to have. It felt familiar, felt comforting. Felt at the same time also like a dangerous trap. 

Maybe for him, it's just wishes and dreams he's sharing with a friend, an ex. For me, talk like this with him just conjures up memories of dreams we once shared together, and raises hope and wishes that in the end will end up hurting me and hindering my progress to moving on and being less attached to him and to what we once had. Maybe to another person it's just all talk, but to me, a dreamy Pisces who is gullible and so easily lead on, talk of babies and family  means so much more... 

I wish I were not like this. I wish I did not feel like this, I wish I were not so vulnerable and easily swayed by talk of family, a beautiful family and a future filled with love and security, stability and the comfort of not being alone... But this is the way I am. Take me as I am.

Restlessness

It's a little after 5AM. I have been waking up almost every single hour, partly because the day's been restlessly running around. And these days, especially after the close call of having my bike stolen in front of my own door step,  every little noise at night keeps up awake and on edge.

What's wrong with me? Why can't I sleep? I had such "good" productive day yesterday, went in early to work and left after 7pm to go home and eat before working a bit more before sleep. 

But I couldn't sleep... Not until well after 1AM... It's going be a long exhausting day...

1.53AM

I fell asleep early, abnormally early. Half a day of spent listening to friends about issues affecting their relationship is so draining. I was so exhausted, so exhausted when I came home and collapsed into bed...

I dreamed...

Ghosts. Terrible and horrific haunting Images of ghosts and ghouls that frightened me so. I broke out in a sweat and opened my eyes. Only close to two in the morning. I was so scared... And I got paranoid. My mind conjured images of burglar, of someone trying to break in in the dead of the night. 

I heard creaks and noises. Is someone here? Am I alone?

I'm so frightened. So frightened...

In between

Why do relationships break down? Why do people who loved one another once become so estranged? Why do people who once was so filled with love and hope become disillusioned and bitter?

I will never really know or understand why. With the death of my parents, I came to the conclusion that if people really experienced death and ever really saw it take away a loved one, then they would not fight or bicker or be filled with so much ego and pride. If people really understood death and fragility of life, perhaps they would truly treasure and realise the real meaning of love, and really see how magical it is to find someone you love and think of so dearly...

My own experience with love and relationship has been so fraught with dashed hopes and broken dreams. As a child, I prayed and prayed so hard for peace in the family, I hoped and wished and promised god (whoever he was or whatever he meant to me at the time...) that I would give my own life for my parents not to argue and to make up. I hated being in between, hated being the bridge. And it seems once you are in that role, it is hard to get out of it.



Again, I find myself caught in the middle of something between two friends. What can I do? What can I say? I never wished to be involved in the breakdown of a relationship... heck, I am longing and dreaming every night and day to be in a relationship myself. But it seems I am on the outside hoping for peace while in front of me, all around  me, relationships break down and love turns to bitterness and anger.



One day, I maybe will understand why.
One day, maybe I will stop believing that love and peace can cure all ills in the world.

Disappointment

There's nothing worse than being excited about something, looking forward to something, only to be disappointed at the last moment.

I invited two friends over for dinner, and they were so happy and saying it would be a great time.
I shopped, cleaned, spent over an hour cooking tonnes of food. When the agreed time came, nobody showed up. I checked my phone. They're not coming anymore.

The circumstances are quite sad, and I can't blame them.

But still, it's so disappointing. I can't go and invite my neighbour friends, as it would look so bad I didn't invite them in the first place. And now? Tonnes of food just for me... Another night alone at  home

Alarm

I stood on the platform on my way home. I leaned against the wall and felt so tired. The heat, the humidity is eroding my energy levels, even when I feel like I do so little. 

The work I do, reading and researching for others, doesn't really mean I get a chance to talk to anyone. So to go home at the end of the day and be silent for the whole night is daunting. I stood on the platform and wondered what I could do or watch later to keep me away from thinking and feeling that I'm the only person left. Since mum died, this feeling has been haunting me occasionally. There's always my cat, but these days she keeps to herself and hides trying to keep cool...

A quarter past eight in the evening. I detoured to the hardware store in the hope of getting some kind of alarm to a attach to my front door. A friend of mine has one. It rings when you open the door. More noise than anything else. But it's a deterrent. I was also hoping to buy some "alarm stickers" to place on my window. Again, more to scare than anything else. anything helps, anything helps when you're paranoid and scared of being alone. 

Standing on the platform, I again have this overwhelming and nauseating feeling of not wanting to go home. A few times I just go bike at night. But that's kind of dangerous and creepy to be biking alone in the dark.  

Ha... Before it was just the loneliness, the unpleasantness of being alone. Now it's being alone at home and the paranoia of someone showing up at my door or trying to break in... 

Never ending. Never any real peace or rest...

Realisation

Every tear shed alone,

I grow stronger. Stronger. Stronger.

Every moment spent by myself, 

Makes me realise the real meaning of life and its illusions and false promises.

When I am speeding on my bike at night,

Nothing, nothing, and no one can touch me.

(Almost) theft

I was shaking, was really shaken by what had happened when I realised how much danger I could have been in.  For the next six hours or so, I stayed home and dared  not leave the house, but also partly to wait for the police to show up (which they never did...)

I was just about to leave the house for work when I saw a guy stand at my front door. Shorter than me, blond short hair and blue eyes, black T-shirt with a Microsoft Windows logo on the front. I'd say around 25-30 years old. I live on the second floor of a duplex, so it is unusual for anyone (other than the postman or someone delivering advertising flyers...) to come up to my door. And I didn't even hear any one walking on the exterior staircase leading to my front door, which I normally would hear for it is quite loud and the stairs creak...

The guy just stood there, and quickly asked me how long I've lived here. I found it bizarre, some stranger at the door early in the morning. Then he said he was thirsty and hoping for a glass of water. I found that even more bizarre, and was actually a bit frightened... I felt suspicious, and should have just ignored him. But I turned and went into the kitchen to get water. By the time I got back to the front door, the guy was gone.  It was then I noticed my bike lock, one I bought recently with a steel cable wire that I used to wrap around the wheel and the railing of my front balcony, had been cut through.

My front door became the scene of a crime (attempt to steal...).  I stood there for like five minutes, shocked and scared before I reached for the phone and dialed 911. I gave the description to the emergency response personnel, and was told to stay home till the police arrive. I waited and waited for almost six hours before I called again, only to be told that I better just head down to the police station myself to file a report. (so much for "emergency"... )

When I told a friend later, my shock was met with a flippant joke. Pretty distasteful really, especially given the fact I  was shaking and felt so insecure and unsafe in my own home! Though nothing happened, my own home, the very place of my security and shelter, felt like it had just been violated...

Sure, I didn't have anything stolen, so I guess it's at the bottom of priorities. When I got to the police station, I was told there was little that could be done. All I could do is file a report and maybe, just maybe they will be able to match the description with another crime committed in the area...

Shaken...

I'm so shaken right now... Shaking and feeling so physically ill from what I just experienced...
I feel so violated in my own home. I feel sick and feel like crying.

Someone just tried to steal m bike. Someone cut the chain of my lock in front of my own door.  The guy was staring at my face, and I was talking to him. He could have broken in had I not been home...
What have I just experienced?

Just when you think things are going alright, being part of  a potential crime just kicks me to rock bottom.

I cannot be alone right now... I need company. Desparately need company...

4.24am

Another dream of mum, the third time in as many days...

We were just riding the metro in Montreal. Not sure where we were going, but she was next to me. It must have been a trip I did with her, because it felt and seemed all so familiar, like it happened before and I was reliving it. 

I think we got to a station called Atwater, where there's a mall. I looked to find her, but mum was gone... Gone... 

I broke down, and began crying. I was inconsolable....

Lonely process

Again I realise how loss is such a lonely, lonely process, one that cannot be shared, one that cannot easily be described or felt by another. And again, like so many times over the past year, I feel like I am bothering another by trying to express how I feel.

And what makes it harder is that people do not understand. Mourning and any show of emotions seems like the great "abnormal". I've experienced this first hand, and have felt like I'm being chastised because I lost someone and am feeling the effects of that loss. People do not want to talk about death. People are scared and uncomfortable talking about or listening to you talk about crying and coping. This is not just my experience, but the experience of everyone I know from my group therapy. Mourners are shunned like outcasts, pariahs. Which hurts more because exactly this is the time we need encouragement and support. Exactly this is the period we need compassion and understanding, and not weird looks and comments as if we have changed so much and become so different. I mean, if you lose someone, you will know. You really will know and understand. 

 How terribly unsettling and unfair on mourners to have to deal with loss and also deal with social ostracisation. While the rest of the world moves on... while people climb up in their careers, while people find partners and get settled down into their cozy little lives, while people fight and argue and get worked up  about petty details and discontents, the mourner's life seems to stand still. The mourner seems to be lost in time, trying to grapple with the past, and so afraid to let go, so afraid to move on. The mourner seems lost in loss, hopelessly longing for some semblance of understanding and human contact.



I don't want to be stuck in the past. I don't want to grow older and more bitter. I don't want to be treated like some irrational fool who is saddened by flashbacks and reminders.

I want to be loved, I need to be loved.
I want to be heard, I want to be understood.

Nephew's hair

Earlier today I sent a picture of my nephew to a close friend, and he commented how peculiar my nephew's hair looked. His hair is indeed quite thin and matted on his head, quite unlike "normal" Asian babies, whose hair often grows "outward".

I hadn't really noticed before. The similarity, the resemblance with dad's hair is uncanny. I tried to describe dad's hair and how it was. But I could not find the words. I just could not find the words. I choked and tears started to fall. I broke and hung up the phone. I could not, simply could not continue the conversation any longer...

My nephew's hair looks and feels like my dad's, like the grandpa he never met.
 Suddenly I have this urge to want to see my nephew... to want to be much closer to him.

Flight 214

The tragic crash landing of Asiana flight 214 at SFO became the source of a racist prank pulled by some intern at the National Transportation Safety Board...

I must admit the made up names of the pilots is a pretty clever pun, but under the circumstances of a traumatic air crash which claimed (amazingly only) three lives is a rather sick joke...

One year on (II)

I spent the day helping a friend and his family move. I was so happy to do it, so happy to be surrounded by people, to be kept busy, to be useful, not to be sad or pensive. I went to his old place around 11. I got home at well past 1 in the morning. 

It was exhausting, but I did not feel tired. There was so much, so much stuff, in boxes, in black bin bags, pieces of furniture, shelves, suitcases and backpacks. So much stuff. But we managed to do it. My friend and his mother kept on thanking me, praising how much I helped them with the move. Deep down, I thanked them for making me feel useful, for keeping me company on a most difficult day.

People may question why I am again, for the third time in a month making things difficult for myself. The first, mum's death according to the lunar calendar, the second, mum's death on the "actual" calendar. The third sad day, her funeral cremation. What a month it was last year. What a painful and traumatic year...

Well, perhaps I never really had the time or right moment to feel sad, to really appreciate or digest what happened a year ago. I lost my dear mother, and soon after sowed the seeds of losing my dearest friend and companion. It was a difficult time. But I just braved it all. Braved it all and didn't think it would break me, didn't think I would be bothered at all.

I don't think I really ever wrote about the day of mum's funeral and cremation. It was too much to write about.  Even today, it is too much to write about. All I can recall are flashbacks. Of people crying... my aunts, uncles, my ex, my brother and his wife... everyone crying. I stayed dry, stoic as ever. I could not, did not, cry, as much as I wanted or needed to. I can recall the slideshow with pictures from different stages of mum's life. How I smiled at those pictures, even though people became emotional seeing mum as the way she was. I want to remember the way she was, long before the cancer ravaged her body, long before hunger, starvation, thinned her to just bone and skin, long before jaundice, bloating and death took over...  I can recall a little speech I made in front of everyone, thanking people for their presence, and then turning to mum to tell her to "go.." Go travel, like she always enjoyed doing, go to Holland, go to Canada, go to the monastery in Puli (Taiwan) where she found such joy and peace... I remember telling her we will be alright...

I can recall accompanying her coffin to the crematorium. I can recall my prayers as I bid my final farewell. I can recall watching her remains being scraped and brushed into the marble urn I had chosen for her. I can recall more tears from relatives, my ex... I can recall sleeping at night and tearing. Did anyone notice? Did anyone care to notice? I can recall shivering and waking up in the middle of the night a few nights later and feeling this deep, deep unfillable void. That would be the first of many nights I would wake up since then till now... sometimes crying, sometimes shuddering like a madman, sometimes sweating from fear...

One year on. I can recall so many images, so many memories, so many things that were said and done... I can recall the tears on people's faces, the smiles and laughter I had when my ex visited and accompanied me through at the end of a tough, tough journey...At the same time, it all feels like ages ago... How many times have I cried since? How many times have I broken down? How many times have people told me to "Get over it!" and move on and hurt me so with their callous words and complete misunderstanding of what it means to lose someone, what it means to grieve loss? How many times  have I swallowed my tears and shed them only when and where nobody sees them? How many times have to told myself I deserve to be loved, I deserve so much more and failed to believe it?

One year on. My friend's mum asked me why I smile so much... why I am so patient and how I can remain so calm after all I have experienced. Because I am trying. Smiling because smiling and joking around and laughing at silly things makes me feel lighter. Smiling because when I am alone by myself, it is harder to smile. I am trying. Trying to be patient and just ride out the rough spell of grief and volatile emotions... Trying to be calm because I know, I have seen, what it really means and is like to lose all control of everything... I am trying.
Trying so very hard to find balance again. Trying so very hard to live up to the promises I made to my parents, to myself, that I will stand up again. I have been trying and struggling to find a "new normal" despite this very deep sense of isolation and loneliness I feel I find myself in ("Nobody likes someone who's unhappy" as I've been very bluntly told by a friend... As if I choose to be unhappy. As if I choose to mourn, because it is so much fun...).

I am trying. Through ceremonies, through commemorations, through two days of charity bike riding, through a three week venture to the Middle Land... All these attempts to be "better", to be alive again after death, to find myself and someone who can see through all that I have had to face, who can see through that hard shell and defensiveness and still see beauty inside. I AM TRYING... One year on. I am trying. And I will be trying even more still.