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.

*************************************

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.”

My mum's death anniversery

A year has passed.

A year ago and a week ago, I remember being woken up by my dad in the morning. He said that my mum had difficulty breathing - and I ran to her room. I remember the sense of panic within - seeing 4 big burly ambulance guys (and a lady) with all their equipment, before finally putting her on their special stretcher and zooming off to the hospital.

I remember going to the hospital later that morning with my dad - my mum really upset being hooked up with the tubes, and demanding for food, claiming she hadn't eaten in days! Little did I know that that was to be the last time I saw her awake.

I remember all the morning and evening visits to the hospital after, still optimistic the first 2-3 days, before feeling hope slip away slowly.

A year and a day ago, the doctor and nurses told us that after the kidney, liver, lung, cardio was all failing, the last straw was the brain. It would be no more than a day or two. A call to my brother, and he zipped back into Florence from London, expecting to arrive midnight.
Exactly a year ago, since that dreadful morning when the hospital called us up at about 5am, to tell us that mum was about to go, when in fact she had just.
We redirected my brother, whose plan from London was delayed, and on the way to the hotel.

My dad and I, walked that street, so familiar by then, each day for the past 2 weeks between the hotel and hospital. This time, we were somber, the light was just breaking, but darkness growing in our hearts.

I was mad, that the hospital reception queried us, not allowing us to go to the ICU immediately. 

We finally did, after an agonizing 5-10 minutes of explaining - before we buzzed the ICU door, and surprised to see my brother open it. We were too late. 

It'll be a holiday, forever etched in my mind.

My brother was in London, folks in Singapore, and we were in Vietnam.

Always wanting to visit Italy (it's my favorite cuisine), we congregated there to visit Rome, Florence and Venice. 

The picture above, is the last photograph of my mom - taken at Michaelangelo Piazza in Florence, enroute to visiting Sienna/Pisa. The day before she was warded, and never to awaken.

It's bittersweet. My mum seemed carefree and happiest on holidays, getting out of routine, fussing over the grandkids, pining for Chinese food. I remember the Cherries she kept stocking up, all the 3-in-1 milo packets and biscuits she brought from Singapore, in case the grandkids wanted. 

In a sense, it was the perfect way for her to go. She pined to be with the family.

She was heartbroken quietly, when we told her a couple of  months before this, that instead of moving to Singapore, we'd move to Jakarta instead. She said nothing, uncharacteristically.  

To be surrounded by those whom she loved most, carefree on her holiday. She suffered her whole life, but she didn't at the end. She was sedated, and never woken. 

It’s been a year, but she has not been forgotten. I remember her every time I see our Italy pictures, every time I step into my dad's home at Florida Road in Singapore, and we talk fondly of her often, with our kids.

How sad that the cliche is true, that we miss the person most, only after he or she is taken away from us.

Funny how it takes someone's death, for us to truly forgive a life time of "transgressions".

Death simplifies a person, removes all doubt, and unfortunately, it is too late.
It's too late to tell you one last time, we love and miss you.

Too late, but we do.

No, I do.
Thank you for all you have done.

Your faith was simple, but you are finally at Rest, in the arms of Jesus.

Rest well. Enjoy Jesus. Till we meet again.   

2 Timothy 4:6-8
And the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day