Abang asked me the other day, how can I be so patient with Adik
when she is in her High-high-blue
mode? I replied, I have dealt with Mom’s High-high-blue
mode since I was born, and Adik has not reached Mom’s PhD level yet. I don’t
know ever since I was old enough to be left alone and take care of Mom for
short period, dad has trusted me to be able to handle Mom’s peculiarities. Adik
being daddy’s pet back then is almost always with dad on location when he is
shooting nearby, (if he were outstation, he would drag all of us of course), so
I was left with Mummy. On most occasions Mom was healthy and aware, but there
were occasions when I was left with Mom when she was not well. I still remember
9 year old me, trying to convince Mom she can’t go out of the house wearing
nothing, and then trying to tell her actually Daddy said we are not to go out
at all until dad comes home.
All my life, my first purpose was to look after Mom, then
everything else. It comes to me like second nature that I don’t even have to
shift behavior when Mom is sick, so when it came to Adik, even though she is
harder to control because she is so much more stubborn than Mom, I don’t bat an
eyelash. Whenever Mom was sick, she always prefer me to be there for her, maybe
because she get so use to me being there, or maybe because I have a softer
touch than Dad and Adik. It seems true with Adik now too, she prefers how I am
with her when she is sick rather than Dad and Abang. I still remember when I
went to university; I will call home every day, just to check that Mummy is ok,
that all is fine at home. People in my residential college noticed this habit
of mine and they were speculating if I have a boyfriend, one brave soul
actually asked me directly, who was I calling every day. When I told her my
mom, she looked at me incredulously.
When I received my teaching posting to Sarawak, Mummy was
warded in the psychiatric ward in Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL). She asked for me
every day, not wanting anyone else to visit her. I tried telling her I had to
go to Sarawak, but she couldn’t understand. When I was getting on the plane, I
cried my hardest, because I was leaving my sick Mom and my two year old brother
(whom I have raised since he was a baby) behind. The reason I rejected the
posting after I arrived in Kuching was the realization that I couldn’t in good
conscience just leave these two people I love behind. So when a friend who had
the same posting I had, angrily telling me at our graduation that Kapit was a
big city, I was taken aback, speechless, but then I realize not a lot of my
friends know my family situation. That incident reminds me to never judge
without knowing all the facts.
When Mom passed away, one of the texts I sent to a close
friend, was a question, who do I take care of now? I really felt a loss; I was
so use to looking after Mummy that when she was gone I felt purposeless, that
my life had no meaning. But of course soon it was obvious that I still had the
rest of the family to take care of, but it was just not the same, not to the same
intense degree like it was with Mom. So I guess that is about it today, I don’t
know why, but maybe visiting Adik in the same ward Mom was in nowadays, stirred
up old memories.
No comments:
Post a Comment