Although he had an amazing will to live, his slender and diminutive stature seemed to work against his resilience and valiant fight to stretch his lifespan.
In my role as one of the caregivers, perhaps the most challenging thing was to absorb and digest the bad news from the oncologist, clear that the cancer could not be staved off. “The cancer has reached its final stage and your brother is too weak to benefit from chemotherapy. For now, we can only focus on managing the pain, and we will do our best to make him comfortable within reason.” This sounded like a horrifying death sentence, only that the date of execution was deferred.
From that time onwards, despite the professional palliative care given, the chronic and intractable pain worsened, and I would often shed a tear of frustration and sadness at seeing the cold stare in my brother’s eyes, eyes tainted with stoic weariness that cried for help. Help that I knew would never flow his way.
Four months ago, only 61 years of age, the sun set on his life as he succumbed to the atrocious disease.
While my brother was buried, my mother was in a nursing home, suffering from dementia, an incurable disease, at its final and worst stage. She never knew that her firstborn son had died. My mother died two weeks ago, aged 81. While she was alive, I often reflected on her life and the prolonged pain she endured, and this impelled me to write a ‘poem’ entitled, Mother! Oh Mother! – I Love You. I would like to share the poem with you.
“Mother! Oh mother! I love you
Only a few years ago, you were so hale and hearty
With a beautifully rounded face
Unblemished face bubbling with a valiant will to live
Eyes bright and sparkling with vivaciousness
Flawlessly crowned by plump lips
And a full complement of gleaming white teeth
Mother, endearingly swarthy in complexion
Glowing and bubbling with infectious energy
Walking sprightly like a gazelle
With a profound sense of purpose and moral authority
Oozing with immeasurable confidence and amaranthine graciousness
Forever beaming with infinite hope
Ever conscious of your rights and responsibilities
Quick to put chauvinists in their place
Uncompromising in your rejection of chivalry
Self-sufficient and loathing to burden anyone Abounding with glittering pearls of practical wisdom
Generously imparting eternal nuggets of intelligence
Beneficiaries too innumerable to be quantified
Perhaps as many as the grey strands of hair on your head
Mother, you must be proud of your heritage
For you have left a lasting impression on all who crossed your path
Your love for children prompted you to choose a career
A career despised by many slobs
But one you pursued with an undying sense of passion
Enduring zest, unwaning zeal and perfervid enthusiasmYou dedicated your entire career to teaching children
Children from diverse backgrounds
Doing so with a steely and indefatigable resolve
Fully embracing them as your own
Not driven by monetary reward
Ever so keen to swim against the raging tide of self-centredness
Compelled by your unconditional love and kindness
Never ever beholden to your title
But always beholden to your legacy
With a sense of fulfilment
You developed an ineradicable heritage swelling with various professionals
A visionary par excellence
You have always been deeply valued by your family
For you were always keen to step up to the plate
Giving guidance willingly and unprompted
But never ever overstepping your boundaries
Impassionately gluing together all family joints
Leading from the front in making your family a stable unit
A loving and enduring pillar of support to all in your family
An invaluable mighty pylon
A huge security blanket insulating all in the family from harm
An impermeable marquee lovingly offering refuge during stormy periods
Always keen to lend a listening ear
And ever so impartial in the way you related to all your children
And then came the herculean enemy
Unannounced and uninvited
Mighty in ruthlessness
Brutally attacking your memory
Gradually sapping your energy and confidence
Eventually immobilising you
And viciously reducing you to an invalid
Sadly, you are now a miniscule shadow of yourself
I can hardly converse with you
You often look at me in complete silence
With a stolid stare, nary a blink
And a face devoid of emotion
Oftentimes with no sense of recognition at all
These are days which pinch my heart with excruciating pain
My eyes are often bursting to the seams with tears
As my memory evokes nostalgic feelings
Remembering how healthy, agile, sharp and smart you used to be
Almost as if you had the eternal right to these attributes
With a sense of quotidian commitment
You fervently imparted knowledge and profound epiphanic insights
Ever so quick to lovingly instill discipline at the slightest of infractions
Peccadilloes nearly non-existent in your vocabulary
What a merciless enemy you are dementia
Invisible to the naked eye but extremely harmful
Like a super enraged typhoon
Or the unrelenting destructive power of a tsunami
Profoundly oozing with boundless negative energy and ruinous vigour
All forced to unwillingly succumb to your irreversible brutality
Heartlessly leaving many helpless victims in your wake
Harrowingly denying them the inalienable right
Of enjoying precious companionship with their offspring
Mother, I helplessly stand in despair
As I see this mighty condition mercilessly ripping you apart. Of course, you are in your twilight years.
But even in the autumn of your life, you still deserve to live comfortably.
I regret failing to tell you that I love you as often as I should have.
In fact, I don’t recall ever telling you that I love you. I had fooled myself into believing that you will always be there. With all your senses fully intact
Of course, I was wrong,
Horrendously wrong
Nonetheless, intuition tells me that you know that I love you
Even if only to soothe my profound sense of guilt
You are alive,
But it feels like you have been taken away from me without warning
As years gradually ate into your strength
I chose to be oblivious to all that
Blinded by intense denial, frustration and perhaps bitterness
Hoping against hope that one day all will be okay
My eyes are welling with tears as I write these words
It feels like you are alive and dead at the same time
Quite a strange feeling
Especially coming from a sane being
For sure, we were not created to go through all this
If it’s any solace to me
For now, the subdued brightness in your eyes bestows a glimmer of hope on me
For I know that I’m not in the worst possible space
At least I can still intently gaze on you
While parents of many of my contemporaries have long fallen asleep
I know it’s not too late to tell you that I love you
And that I will always love you
Mother! Oh mother! I love you.”
