The House of Death

(This took many days before I felt I could write it but I believe it will help many of you understand the process of grieving and trauma that comes post death or a trying challenge.)

My first personal encounter with chronic illness and death was when my father was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and given 9 months to live. He slowly weakened and died. I watched his last gasps of air. It was horrific for me at 28. I am highly empathetic and so I was rather traumatized by that passing. Most of my colleagues in the school I taught in were unaware as I never mentioned the struggles to them and it was the Christmas vacation so they didn’t need to know. Then we didn’t have FB so we had to let everyone know etc. It was expected but sudden and then the funeral was very tiring for me. Firstly because of the late nights we spent at the housing deck since we decided to have it at our own home and then secondly because I had to repeat the story to many many many people and see to new people’s needs. I didn’t really have time to grieve or rest, I was still very much on edge. This showed as on the actual day of the funeral I had irritable bowel movements which I only got under severe stress.

My mother was so tired post illness and funeral that on the day after the funeral she actually was not paying attention and managed to get her foot run over by a car which was just driving in the carpark below our block of flats. Thankfully it was a light injury, however she was now sick and homebound and I the caregiver across new year’s day.

Three years later, my mother and I went to see a gynae for a special check-up suggested by her general practitioner. He without realizing how it would impact me personally showed me my mother’s cervical cancer… not the one on screen, the actual live version. Yes.

Once I managed to send my mother home. I called my brother to tell him. I went to Risen Christ Church which was near the clinic and sat and cried and cried and cried. All I could think about was losing mum the way I lost dad. This was a huge generalization. Hers was Stage 1, his Stage 4. But in my head muddled with old feelings of trauma and death, this was how I felt. I only could call one other friend — one who lost both his parents soon after each other to cancer. Someone as young as I was who had gone through it already. One of the few.

Dad’s illness showed me clearly how ill equipped we are to talk about death and help people dealing with chronic illness and their caregivers to manage their challenges and grief. Too many friends distanced themselves from me as they didn’t know how to help me and I am sure many of them were terrified of having to face the same challenges themselves. My 28 year old range friends invited me for parties etc. But not to really hear me out. I only found one who could. Thank you, Lizzie Tay Your feeding me and letting me just sit with you helped so much. You could bear the pain and not run.

The most challenging aspects of watching mom go through her treatment was when she had to go into an operating theatre for the first time. She was naked and in that hospital garment and looking at the white ceiling and shivering from the cold. Watching her made me want to cry but I had to learn to hold back… I could only imagine how hard it was for her what more for me to cry and then she had to worry about me too.

I sought counseling during this time. Since I am a trained counselor, I knew the benefits. Also it was clear I had no one I could actually talk to… my brother had to manage his own grief and his raising of a family of 3 children and my mother — I could not talk to her… or maybe I could. Just I could not see it then.

Then I had fewer emotional and financial resources to draw from.

When my mom was better, I was the one who saw my own emotional needs which were avoided or denied before because of the illness, I saw them arise powerfully. I nearly fainted at Mass as I felt claustrophobic. I will never understand why, I assume it was anger at God and also being so weak. I looked at the house I grew up in and only felt death. I felt guilty but all I wanted to do was to have my own space. A space not filled with pain and illness and oldness and death. I spoke to my counselor and she said it was natural and told me to just find an alternate living space for a while to breathe. It didn’t need to be permanent. My former principal when I was a student and nun said I needed it and not to feel guilt and that helped me so much. As many of my relatives questioned my leaving my mom post her crisis. But my mom actually understood. She understood so clearly. I rented a room and I would stay at her place over the weekend and stayed at mine on weekdays. During that time, my mom’s friend from her youth came to stay with her too. So she had company.

The cell phone has never left my side since my father’s illness. I remember having to explain to my students why it was next to me and why I may have to take calls. I remember friends messaging me at night and I had to tell them not to as I would wake up. Switch off your phone they would say… I have a chronic parent to see to… the phone is always on … you never know when a call is an emergency one.

The call to USA by my brother … the rushing home … the standing at the hospital bed for three months… the watching my mother beg God for help as she prayed…the watching her hospital ward mates die… just made the stress pile up.

The bringing her home and caring for her for 1 month. The managing of my finances and company and staff while clearing her poo and managing her medication. The horrific bed sores and clearing them.

Dec 2015… Jan 2016, her cries of pain, my waking up to see her crunched in a ball withering in pain, her body healed of bed sores now bleeding again, her body getting hotter and heavier and more rigid as she became less responsive. Everything was a challenge. I was crying before she died. I had few tears at her funeral.

I have tears here and there now.. when I see something that triggers a past event tinged with memories of her pain, her suffering or that of my dad’s. My brother’s beautiful home where she passed, is now my new house of death. I prefer not to be here. Everything reminds me of her. We leave the light in her room … they say she visits on the 7th day after…

I go through her stuff. 
 I tell new people what happened. 
 and I re-live her pain, my dad’s and mine.

This time around I have so much better emotional and financial and social support. At this age, my friends have seen illness and death up close. It doesn’t make it better, it just normalizes it more when I speak.

My self care is better, I took two days off to disappear after the funeral. I watch myself and make sure I eat even when I don’t want to. I went to do my hair, my nails, my face… to make sure I go afresh and anew to the world… despite a very much broken and sore heart and a mind filled with pain and suffering and yes anger.

The external cannot comfort me. 
 I need to learn to comfort myself. 
 I am aware of being triggered and I am also aware I have to re-frame and rewire my thoughts.

No house is a house of death … I need to remember the life, the happiness and the comfort the house brought. Avoidance is a child’s game. I know that now in my 40s, I have to accept and live a life tinged with sadness. There are moments and days and periods of great happiness, let me not have my trauma and sadness and memories overwhelm them. My present. My Now. My Life again. Mom would have wanted that.