by Terence A. Anthony
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| The road from Samarahan (where my father was hospitalized) to Kuching (where my family lives). | Photo was taken a different date from the events described. |
I think it was around 3 or 4 am.
The night was colder than usual so the hospital’s air conditioning only made
things worst. My mother was already talking about funeral arrangements. Words
that I never thought would come out from her mouth.
My father just passed away and we
were all there to witness him leaving. On one hand you can argue that we all
had our chance to say our goodbyes. Well, I managed to with tears dropping all
over his face while I was kissing his forehead. I could hear him struggling to
breathe. On the other hand, I wasn’t truly sure it was a good thing. It seemed
troubled to my mental health. I could hear him struggling to breathe and in my
head at that point, I could only imagine him trying to respond. My brain just
forced images of him trying to open his dry lips trying to speak.
Even until today, I still have
nightmares of those images flashing through. I will wake up all sweaty while
touching everything in my surroundings, trying to convince the past year was
supposed to be a nightmare. Being the stereotypical millennial I scroll through
my phone and convince myself that it was all real. It happened and there’s no
way I can run from those events.
Standing at the hospital’s
parking lot, my cousin Alex was hugging me, trying to get me into her car. Just
hours ago I was taking pictures of a John Lennon poster she bought for me. She’s
the more responsible one between both of us. All I did was sob my way back
home.
While witnessing my father’s
passing was traumatizing, walking into the compound of our house was
horrifying. The sense of dread settled. It was the realization that he would
not be home anymore that subsumed me. I stood frozen in the driveway and my
body just refused to walk in. I knew I was cold and I was tired from not
sleeping, yet I couldn’t bring myself in. It felt as if something else took
over my part of the brain that deals with motor functions.
Alex insists I walked in and I
think she did try to move my body. For the record, I’m probably twice or trice
her size. So imagine a grown adult sobbing in front of his family’s house while
a woman smaller than him trying to convince him to move.
I remember acting like a broken
record, repeating the words; “He’s not inside, he’s not inside. What’s the
point?”
I don’t think I was a fully developed
adult. I can’t handle proper responsibilities. I struggle with my finance from
time to time. I struggle making the most basic decisions in my life. There are
only two people in my life that I could ask for advice, be vulnerable and still
get loved instead of being roasted. I'll probably get ridiculed for the nonsense I ask. One of them is gone and I could never share
my future experience with him. I wasn’t able to comprehend how a person like me
can go through life without that support structure. It felt ridiculous. Not to
mention I am in my 20s, still trying to figure out what’s the point of most
things. Now, my father is gone and I couldn’t get him to help me out.
“He’s not inside, he’s not
inside.”
People say that as a kid, you see
your parents as the answer to many mysteries in life. They went through
experiences that you’ve never been before, just by virtue of being older. They’re
the only adults around. Then because the world has changed, you go through
experiences that your parents have never been through. So at that point, you’ll
know more than your parents. Then it’s your turn to return the favour and teach
them your new world. I don’t think I had the chance to do the later for my
father.
//
Well, I did finally walk in the
house but it took Alex quite some time. I wasn’t sure how she had the patience
to do that. Not many people can convince a man who felt lost and terrified at
the same time. How do you convince someone who was using emotion instead of
logic? I don’t know how, but Alex managed to do it.
The scenario still plays in my
head. That sense of lost and I am not so sure how to move on from that. Every
time I have something that bothers me it replays.
Even when it comes to pleasant
experiences, it’s still hard to phantom that I can’t share these experiences
with him. It felt weird not being able to tell people that I care about what I
was doing.
Not long after he passed away I
traveled to Bali and South Korea. Normally, when I fly back to Kuching I would
sit down and show pictures I took and explain what happen. He was the one who
convince to start a blog to tell all these stories. Too bad it took me this
long to write about my travels.
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| Walked into a religious procession in Bali. |
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| The biggest Catholic Church in Seoul. | I'm not religious but whenever I visit a country, I get curious about their Catholic architecture. |
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| View of Seoul. I think that was the steepest hill I ever climbed up in my life. |
“He’s not inside, he’s not
inside.”
//
We’re so used to living with
stories and narratives dominating our minds. Since I normally critic movies and
write about them, I watch a lot of them. So it fools my mind into thinking that
life is like that from time to time. There’s a beginning, there’s a climax and
there’s an ending. It’s harmful. It allows people to imagine that a plot is
progressing when life isn’t like that.
The same when it comes to
mourning and realizing that you just lost a loved one. You can’t just expect an
arc to end or that there’s a resolution to the climax. Instead, life is like a
bunch vignettes. They’re glued together with pieces that don’t make sense at
all. People keep saying things like “this too shall pass.” It sounds nice
because it assumes you can cry your way through and hope that a plot device
would happen to further your story. Maybe to some, there are others who can
come in, intervene and act like a real Deus Ex Machina. What about the rest of
us? We have to move forward by trying to something else.
Some try to own their tragedies
and it becomes part of their character. Others try to bury it underneath tonnes
of other stories and experience. I’m not so sure which one am I now.
It takes a bit of effort to get out
of that dark spot. At this point I just remind myself that my mother is there
to help. Alex helped me out of my darkest time and I know I can rely on her. My
two sisters have been excellent support so far. Amierul, the other writer on
this blog and one of my closest friends ever is often there to talk about what
troubles me. These are the people I can be vulnerable with.
He’s inside my heart and my
memories. It’s time for me to appreciate those still here on Earth.
NOTE: If it means anything, while
I was writing this my post, my mother texted me “You’re everything to Mummy.”
That’s from across the South China Sea at 6:40 am. It’s amazing we’re thinking
about the same theme.
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