Last Picture

This is a post that has been sitting in my draft folder for a number of years. After 5 years, I think I am ready to post this blog.

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I have resisted posting this picture.

After my mom was put into ICU (she never recovered consciousness), my dad and I visited her each morning, and each evening.


At various stages, she was hooked up to 7-9 different syringes, a kidney dialysis machine (the green machine), something to clean the sepsis from the blood, a lung machine, something to help her breathe, covered with ice (she was running a fever of 40), a tube to drain the urine, lots of other monitoring devices,  etc.


I snapped this, as we were about to leave, with my dad taking a last look, say his silent goodbye, before we headed back to our hotel, and which turns out to be - loosely speaking - the only picture of my mom in hospital (albeit blocked by my dad), and the last picture of her alive.  At the end of each day, the look differed: firstly, a look of concern (at the beginning), then a look of hopefulness (that the next day will get better), before a look of hopelessness (when we knew nothing more could be done) - all in a week.


This is not a facebook picture. I cannot demean it.
My folks, have never had the best of relationships. Often, I felt they co-existed, relationship distilled down to just functional. The trip to Italy with my parents (and brother's family and mine), was special, not only because it was our last holiday with our mom, it was special for me to see how my parents interacted.

2 days before my mom was warded, when I was just with her in her hotel room, she burst out saying that without my dad, she would have been dead (my dad spent a whole day walking around Florence, looking for a walking cane for her). For the first time, I see a sense of respect, a sense of humble dependence, a deep sense of gratitude towards my dad, which was what I always thought as missing, and a real wedge in their relationship.

From how my dad went out of his way, to do anything possible to help my mum, it was, in my own eyes, as good as it gets. They may not have had the best of relationships, but they ended as best as they could.

I miss my mom. Never thought I would, honestly - but I do.
As unhappy as she was in Singapore, she was truly carefree, on holiday, and when she visited me overseas. Our Singapore home (where my dad lives), is no longer the same, not as warmth. Each visit, I suddenly miss her nagging one of us to pick up our clothes, fuss over the kids' food or bath. I miss making her laugh.

In her simple faith, I do hold on to God's mercy, that she did indeed accept Jesus in her heart, and now with Jesus.

This verse is special, I picked this verse to be inscribed on her niche - just seems so fitting for her. Enjoy Jesus mum, wait for me.

Revelation 21:4 ESV
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”